The diary of Dr. John William Polidori : 1816 : relating to Byron, Shelley, etc.

THE DIARY
DR. JOHN WIIXIAM POUDOR

WILUAM MICHAEL ROSSETTi

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The Diary of
Dr. John William Polidori

The Diary of

Dr. John WilHam PoHdori

1816

Relating to Byron, Shelley, etc.

Edited and Elucidated by
William Michael Rossetti

"Mi fur mostrati gli spiriti magni
Che del vederli in me stesso n'esalto." — Dante.

LONDON

ELKIN MATHEWS

VIGO STREET

MCMXI

Richard Clav & Sons, Limited,

brkad street hill, e.c., and

bungay, suffolk.

DEDICATED

TO MY TWO DAUGHTERS

HELEN AND MARY

WHO WITH MY LITTLE GRAND-DAUGHTER IMOGENE

KEEP THE HOME OF MY CLOSING YEARS

STILL IN GOOD CHEER

The Diary of
Dr. John William Polidori

INTRODUCTION

A PERSON whose name finds mention in the
books about Byron, and to some extent in those
about Shelley, was John William Polidori, M.D. ; he
was Lord Byron's travelling physician in 1816, when
his Lordship quitted England soon after the separa-
tion from his wife. I, who now act as Editor of his
Diary, am a nephew of his, born after his death.
Dr. Polidori figures not very advantageously in the
books concerning Byron and Shelley. He is exhibited
as overweening and petulant, too fond of putting
himself forward face to face with those two heroes of
our poetical literature, and too touchy when either of
them declined to take him at his own estimation, I
will allow that this judgment of Polidori is, so far as it
goes, substantially just ; and that some of the recorded
anecdotes of him prove him deficient in self-knowledge,
lacking prudence and reserve, and ignoring the dis-

2 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

tinction between a dignified and a quarrelsome
attitude of mind. He was, in fact, extremely young
when he went abroad in April 1816 with Byron, to
whom he had been recommended by Sir Henry
Halford ; he was then only twenty years of age (born
on September 7, 1795), Byron being twenty-eight,
and Shelley twenty-three. The recommendation
given to so very young a man is a little surprising.
It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that
Polidori was without some solid attainments, and
some considerable share of talent. He was the son
of Gaetano Polidori, a Tuscan man of letters who,
after being secretary to the celebrated dramatist
Alfieri, had settled in London as a teacher of Italian,
and of his English wife, a Miss Pierce ; the parents
(my maternal grand-parents) survived to a great age,
only dying in 1853. John Polidori, after receiving
his education in the Roman Catholic College of
Ampleforth (Yorkshire), studied medicine in Edin-
burgh, and took his doctor's degree at a singularly
early age — I believe almost unexampled — the age of
nineteen. His ambition was fully as much for literary
as for professional distinction ; and he published,
besides The Vampyre to which I shall have to recur,
a prose tale named Ertiestus Bercktold, a volume of
verse containing a drama entitled Ximenes^ and some
other writings.

INTRODUCTION 3

One of these writings is the text to a volume,
published in 182 1, entitled Sketches Illustrative of the
Manners and Costumes of France^ Switzerland^ and
Italy, by R. Bridgens. The name of Polidori is not
indeed recorded in this book, but I know as a
certainty that he was the writer. One of the
designs in the volume shows the costume of women
at Lerici just about the time when Shelley was
staying there, in the closing months of his life,
and a noticeable costume it was. Polidori himself
— though I am not aware that he ever received
any instruction in drawing worth speaking of — had
some considerable native gift in sketching faces and
figures with lifelike expression ; I possess a few
examples to prove as much. The Diary shows that
he took some serious and intelligent interest in works
of art, as well as in literature ; and he was clearly a
rapid and somewhat caustic judge of character —
perhaps a correct one. He was a fine, rather romantic-
looking young man, as evidenced by his portrait in
the National Portrait Gallery, accepted from me by
that Institution in 1895.

Dr. Polidori's life was a short one. Not long after
quitting Lord Byron in 18 16 he returned to London,
and in Norwich continued his medical career, but
eventually relinquished this, and began studying for
the Bar. It is said that Miss Harriett Martineau was

4 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

rather in love with him in Norwich. In August
1 82 1 he committed suicide with poison — having,
through losses in gambling, incurred a debt of
honour which he had no present means of clearing
off. That he did take poison, prussic acid, was a fact
perfectly well known in his family ; but it is curious
to note that the easy-going and good-naturedly
disposed coroner's jury were content to return a
verdict without eliciting any distinct evidence as to
the cause of death, and they simply pronounced that
he had " died by the visitation of God."

The matter was reported in two papers. The
Traveller and The New Times. I possess a copy,
made by my mother at the time, of the reports ; and
it may perhaps be as well inserted here-

Copied from The Traveller.

Monday Evening \_August Tjthy 182 1].

Melancholy Event. — Mr. Polidori, residing in Great
Pulteney Street, retired to rest about his usual time on
Thursday night ; the servant, not finding him rise at
the usual hour yesterday, went to his room between
eleven and twelve o'clock, and found him groaning,
and apparently in the last agonies of death. An
alarm was given and medical aid was immediately
called, but before the arrival of Surgeons Copeland

INTRODUCTION 5

and Davies, he was no more. His father was at the
time on his journey to London to see his son, and
arrived about three hours after the event. We under-
stand the deceased was about twenty-six years of
age, and had for some time accompanied Lord Byron
in Italy. A Coroner's Inquest will sit this day to
ascertain the cause of his death.

Copied from The New Times.

Tuesday {September iith, 1821].

Coroner's Inquest on John Polidori, Esquire. —
An Inquisition has been taken before T. Higgs,
Esquire, Deputy Coroner, at the residence of the
father of the above unfortunate gentleman, in Great
Pulteney Street, Golden Square, who was discovered
lying on his bed in a state nearly approaching to
death, and soon afterwards expired.

Charlotte Reed, the servant to Mr. Gaetano Poli-
dori, the father of the deceased, said her master's son
lived in the house, and for some time had been
indisposed. On Monday the 20th of August last he
returned from Brighton, since which his conduct mani-
fested strong symptoms of incoherence, and he gave
his order for dinner in a very strange manner. On the
Thursday following the deceased dined with a gentle-
man residing in the same house, and on that occasion

6 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

he appeared very much depressed in his spirits.
About nine o'clock the same evening he ordered
witness to leave a glass (tumbler) in his room ; this
was unusual, but one was placed as he desired.
Deceased told her he was unwell ; if therefore he did
not get up by twelve o'clock the next day, not to
disturb him. Witness, however, a few minutes before
twelve, went into his room to open the shutters, and
on her return saw the deceased lying in bed ; he was
not in any unusual position, but seemed extremely
ill. Witness immediately left the room, went up-
stairs, and communicated what she had observed to a
gentleman, who instantly came down. Witness then
went for medical assistance. The deceased was about
twenty-six years of age. — Mr. John Deagostini, the
gentleman alluded to by the last witness, corroborated
her statement on his giving him the invitation to
dine, which he accepted in a way quite different from
his usual conduct. Witness also observed that, some
time since, the deceased had met with an accident —
was thrown out of his gig, and seriously hurt in the
head. On Thursday at dinner he spoke in half
sentences ; the conversation was on politics and a
future state. The deceased observed rather harshly
that witness would see more than him ; he appeared
to be deranged in his mind, and his countenance was
haggard. At dinner he ate very little : soon after left

INTRODUCTION 7

the room, but joined again at tea ; hardly spoke a
word, and retired at nine o'clock. After breakfast
next morning, witness inquired of the servant whether
Mr. Polidori had gone out. She replied no, and that
he had desired her not to disturb him. About twelve
o'clock the servant came to him very much alarmed.
Witness went immediately to the apartment of the
deceased, and observed a tumbler on the chair, which
contained nothing but water, and did not perceive
any deleterious substance that the deceased might
have taken ; he was senseless, and apparently in a
dying state. — Mr. Thomas Copeland, a surgeon
residing in Golden Square, was sent for suddenly to
attend the deceased, and attempted to discharge the
contents of the stomach without effect. He lingered
for about ten minutes, and expired. Another medical
gentleman soon after arrived, but his assistance was
also unavailing. — There being no further evidence
adduced to prove how the deceased came to his
death, the jury, under these circumstances, returned a
verdict of — Died by the visitation of God.

Medwin, in his Conversations witk Lord Byron^
gives the following account of how the poet received
the news of Dr. Polidori's death. " I was convinced "
(said Byron) " something very unpleasant hung over
me last night : I expected to hear that somebody I
knew was dead. So it turns out — poor Polidori is

8 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

gone. When he was my physician he was always
talking of prussic acid, oil of amber, blowing into
veins, suffocating by charcoal, and compounding
poisons ; but for a different purpose to what the
Pontic monarch did, for he has prescribed a dose
for himself that would have killed fifty Mithridates
— a dose whose effect, Murray says, was so instan-
taneous that he went off without a spasm or struggle.
It seems that disappointment was the cause of this
rash act." — The evidence of the servant at the inquest
shows that death did not come so very suddenly ; and
in my own family I always heard the poison spoken
of as simply prussic acid.

This is all that I need say at present to explain
who Dr. Polidori was; but I must add a few words
regarding his Diary.

The day when the young doctor obtained the post
of travelling physician to the famous poet and man of
fashion. Lord Byron, about to leave England for the
Continent, must, no doubt, have been regarded by him
and by some of his family as a supremely auspicious
one, although in fact it turned out the reverse. The
article on Polidori written in The Dictionary of National
Biography by my valued friend, the late Dr. Garnett,
speaks of him as "physician and secretary to Lord
Byron " ; but I never heard that he undertook or per-
formed any secretarial work worth speaking of, and

INTRODUCTION 9

I decidedly believe that he did not. The same state-
ment occurs in the inscription on his likeness in
the National Portrait Gallery. Polidori's father had
foreseen, in the Byronic scheme, disappointment as
only too likely, and he opposed the project, but with-
out success. To be the daily companion and intimate
of so great a man as Byron, to visit foreign scenes in
his society, to travel into his own father's native land,
which he regarded with a feeling of enthusiasm, and
with whose language he was naturally well acquainted,
to be thus launched upon a career promising the
utmost development and satisfaction to his literary as
well as professional enterprise — all this may have
seemed like the realization of a dream almost too
good to be true. To crown all, Mr. Murray, Byron's
publisher, had offered Polidori no less a sum than
;^5oo (or 5CX) guineas) for an account of his
forthcoming tour. Polidori therefore began to keep
a Diary, heading it Journal of a Journey through
Flanders etc. ^ from April 24, 1816, /<? ;

and the blank was eventually filled in with the
date "December 28, 1816"; it should rather stand
" December 30." Portions of the Diary are written
with some detail, and a perceptible aim at literary
effect — Murray's ;^500 being manifestly in view ; in
other instances the jottings are slight, and merely
enough for guiding the memory. On this footing the

lo THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Journal goes on up to June 30, 18 16. It was then
dropped, as Polidori notes "through neglect and
dissipation," for he saw a great deal of company. On
September 5 he wrote up some summarized reminis-
cences; and from September 16, the day when he
parted company with Byron at Cologny, near Geneva,
and proceeded to journey through Italy on his own
account, he continued with some regularity up to
December 30, when he was sojourning in Pisa. That
is the latest day of which any record remains ; but it
is known from other evidence that Dr. Polidori con-
tinued in Italy up to April 14, 1817 : he then left
Venice in company with the new Earl of Guilford and
his mother — being their travelling physician. Whether
the Journal is in any fair degree interesting or brightly
written is a question which the reader will settle for
himself; as a document relevant to the life of two
illustrious poets, it certainly merits some degree of
attention.

My own first acquaintance with the Diary of Dr.
Polidori dates back to 1 869, when I was preparing the
Memoir of Shelley which preludes my edition of his
poems, published in 1870; I then availed myself of
the Shelleian information contained in the Diary, and
even gave two or three verbatim extracts from it.
The MS. book was at that time the property of a
sister of his. Miss Charlotte Lydia Polidori, a lady of

INTRODUCTION ii

advanced age. I regret to say that my aunt, on
receiving the MS. back from me, took it into her
head to read it through — a thing which I fancy she
had never before done, or certainly had not done for
very many years, and that she found in it some few
passages which she held to be " improper," and, with
the severe virtue so characteristic of an English
maiden aunt, she determined that those passages
should no longer exist. I can remember one about
Byron and a chambermaid at Ostend, and another,
later on, about Polidori himself. My aunt therefore
took the trouble of copying out the whole Diary,
minus the peccant passages, and she then ruthlessly
destroyed the original MS. After her death — which
occurred in January 1890, when she had attained the
age of eighty-seven years — her transcript came into
my possession. Its authority is only a shade less
safe than that of the original, and it is from the
transcript that I have had to work in compiling my
present volume.

I will now refer in some detail to the matter
of Dr. Polidori's romantic tale, The Vampyre ;
not only because this matter is of some literary
interest in itself, but more especially because the
account of it given in The Dictionary of National
Biography treats Polidori, in this regard, with no
indulgence, and I believe (however unintentionally on

12 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

the part of the late Dr. Garnett) with less than
justice. He says.: "In April 1819 he [Polidori]
published in The New Monthly Magazine, and also in
pamphlet- form, the celebrated story of TJu Vampyre^
which he attributed to Byron. The ascription was
fictitious. Byron had in fact, in June 1816, begun to
write at Geneva a story with this title, in emulation
of Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein ; but dropped it before
reaching the superstition which it was to have illus-
trated. He sent the fragment to Murray upon the
appearance of Polidori's fabrication, and it is inserted
in his works. He further protested in a carelessly
good-natured disclaimer addressed to Galignanfs
Messenger'.'

The facts of the case appear to be as follows. As
we shall see in the Diary, Polidori began, near Geneva,
a tale which (according to Mrs. Shelley) was about a
"skull-headed lady," and he was clearly aware that
Byron had commenced a story about a vampyre.
After quitting Byron, Polidori, in conversation with
the Countess of Breuss, mentioned in his Journal,
spoke (unless we are to discredit his own account) of
the subject of the great poet's tale ; the Countess
questioned whether anything could be made of such
a theme, and Polidori then tried his hand at carrying
it out. He left the MS. with the Countess, and
thought little or no more about it. After his depart-

INTRODUCTION 13

ure from that neighbourhood some person who was
travelling there (one might perhaps infer a lady)
obtained the MS. either from the Countess of Breuss
or from some person acquainted with the Countess :
this would, I suppose, be the Madame Gatelier who is
named in the Journal along with the Countess. The
traveller then forwarded the tale to the Publisher,
Colburn, telling him — and this statement was printed
by Colburn as an Extract of a Letter from Geneva —
that certain tales were " undertaken by Lord B[yron],
the physician [Polidori], and Miss M. W. Godwin,"
and that the writer received from her female friend
"the outline of each of these stories." She did not say
that the completed Vampyre was the production of
Byron ; but Colburn inferred this, and in the
magazine he attributed it to Byron, printing his name
as author.

Among the papers which were left by Dr. Polidori
at the time of his death, and which have come into
my possession, are the drafts of two letters of his —
one addressed to Mr. Henry Colburn, and the other to
the Editor of The Morning Chronicle, These letters
were actually dispatched, and (having no sort of
reason to suspect the contrary) I assume that they
contain a truthful account of the facts. If so, they
exonerate Polidori from the imputation of having
planned or connived at a literary imposture. In his

14 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

letter to Mr. Colburn he affirms (as will be seen) that
the following incidents in his tale were borrowed from
Byron's project : the departure of two friends from
England, one of them dying in Greece [but it is in
fact near Ephesus] after exacting from his companion
an oath not to mention his death ; the revival of the
dead man, and his then making love to the sister of
his late companion. The story begun by Byron and
published along with Mazeppa contains the incidents
above named, except only the important incident of
the dead man's revival and his subsequent love-
making. Byron's extant writing, which is a mere
fragment, affords no trace of that upshot; but
Polidori must have known that such was the intended
sequel. It may be added that the resemblance
between these productions of Byron and of Polidori
extends only to incidents : the form of narrative is
different.

I proceed to give the letter of Dr. Polidori to Mr.
Colburn, followed by the letter to the Editor of The
Morning Chronicle. This latter goes over a good deal
of the same ground as the letter to Colburn, so I
shorten it very considerably.

INTRODUCTION 15

John Polidori to Henry Colburn.

[London], April 2 [1S19].

Sir,

I received a copy of the magazine of last
April (the present month), and am sorry to find that
your Genevan correspondent has led you into a
mistake with regard to the tale of Tke Vampyre —
which is not Lord Byron's, but was written entirely
by me at the request of a lady, who (upon my men-
tioning that his Lordship had said that it was his
intention of writing a ghost story, depending for
interest upon the circumstances of two friends leaving
England, and one dying in Greece, the other finding
him alive, upon his return, and making love to his
sister) saying that she thought it impossible to work
up such materials, desired I would write it for her,
which I did in two idle mornings by her side. These
circumstances above mentioned, and the one of the
dying man having obtained an oath that the survivor
should not in any way disclose his decease, are the
only parts of the tale belonging to his Lordship. I
desire, therefore, that you will positively contradict
your statement in the next number, by the insertion
of this note.

With regard to my own tale, it is imperfect and
unfinished. I had rather therefore it should not

i6 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

appear in the magazine ; and, if the Editor had sent
his communication, as he mentions, he would have
been spared this mistake.

But, sir, there is one circumstance of which I must
request a further explanation. I observe upon the
back of your publication the announcement of a
separate edition. Now, upon buying this, I find
that it states in the title-page that it was entered
into Stationers' Hall upon March 27, consequently
before your magazine was published. I wish there-
fore to ask for information how this tale passed
from the hands of your Editor into those of a
publisher.

As it is a mere trifle, I should have had no
objection to its appearing in your magazine, as I
could, in common with any other, have extracted it
thence, and republished it. But I shall not sit
patiently by and see it taken without my consent,
and appropriated by any person. As therefore it
must have passed through your hands (as stated
in the magazine) from a correspondent, I shall
expect that you will account to me for the publishers,
Messrs. Sherwood and Neely, having possession of it
and appropriating it to themselves ; and demand either
that a compensation be made me, or that its separate
publication be instantly suppressed.

Hoping for an immediate answer, which will

INTRODUCTION 17

save me the trouble of obtaining an injunction, I
remain,

Sir,

Your obedient servant,

John Polidori.

To THE Editor of The Morning Chronicle.

Sir,

As you were the first person to whom I
wrote to state that the tale of The Vampyre was
not Lord Byron's, I beg you to insert the following
statement in your paper. . . . The tale, as I stated
to you in my letter, was written upon the foundation
of a purposed and begun story of Lord Byron's.
. . . Lord Byron, in a letter dated Venice, stated
that he knew nothing of the Vampyre story, and
hated vampyres ; but, while this letter was busily
circulating in all the London and provincial papers,
the fragment at the end of Mazeppa was in the
hands of his publishers in Albemarle Street, with
the date of June 17, 18 16, attached to it, being
the beginning of his tale upon this very foundation.
My development was written on the Continent,
and left with a lady at whose request it was under-
taken ; in the course of three mornings by her side

it was produced, and left with her. From her
2

i8 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

hands, by means of a correspondent, without my
knowledge, it came into those of the Editor of The
New Monthly^ with a letter stating it to be an ebauche
of Lord Byron's. Mr. Watts, as Editor of that
magazine, stated in his notice that the tale which
accompanies the letters " we also present to our
readers without pledging ourselves for its authenticity
as the production of Lord Byron " ; and he continues,
" We should suppose it to have been committed to
paper rather from the recital of a third person." This,
however, after the publication of 700 copies, was
cancelled by the p^iblisker^ and another notice in-
serted stating it to be decidedly his Lordship's, in
direct opposition (as I am informed) to the Editor's
will — who has since retired from the conduct of the
magazine.

Immediately it was published I procured a copy ;
and, upon finding that it was an almost forgotten
trifle of my own, instantly wrote to you as Editor
of The Morning Chronicle, stating the little share
Lord Byron had in the work. This was upon the
Friday evening after its publication. I at the same
time wrote to the publishers of the tale in its separate
form, and to those of the magazine, to stop its sale
under his Lordship's name. On Monday the pub-
lishers of the magazine called upon me, and promised
it should be instantly announced as mine. . . . When

INTRODUCTION 19

I came to claim my share in the profits, I was offered
£$0, instead of nearly ^^300. . . .

Your obedient servant,

John Polidori.

The prefatory note to Tke Vampyre^ in The New
Monthly Magazine, runs thus : " We received several
private letters in the course of last autumn from a
friend travelling on the Continent, and among others
the following, which we give to the public on account
of its containing anecdotes of an individual concerning
whom the most trifling circumstances, if they tend to
mark even the minor features of his mind, cannot fail
of being considered important and valuable by those
who know how to appreciate his erratic but tran-
scendent genius. The tale which accompanied the
letter we have also much pleasure in presenting to
our readers. — Ed." There is also a final note thus :

" We have in our possession the tale of Dr. , as

well as the outline of that of Miss Godwin. The latter
has already appeared under the title of Frankenstein,
or The Modem Prometheus. The former, however,
upon consulting with its author, we may probably
hereafter give to our readers. — Ed."

Two questions arise as to that prefatory note :
(i) Did the Editor really write it, or did the Publisher
Colburn write it ? (2) Is the averment true or false

20 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

that the Editor (or the Publisher) had received in the
course of the preceding autumn "several private
letters" from the same person who had now for-
warded a letter enclosing The Vampyre ?

Murray wrote to Lord Byron on April 27, 18 19.
He speaks of the publication of The Vampyre in The
New Monthly Magazine, ^.nA afterwards in book-form,
and proceeds: "The Editor of that journal has
quarrelled with the Publisher, and has called this
morning to exculpate himself from the baseness of
the transaction. He says that he received it from
Dr. Polidori for a small sum ; Polidori averring that
the whole plan of it was yours, and that it was
merely written out by him. The Editor inserted it
with a short statement to this effect ; but, to his
astonishment, Colburn cancelled the leaf . . . He
informs me that Polidori, finding that the sale ex-
ceeded his expectation and that he had sold it too
cheap, went to the Editor and declared that he would
deny it."

This statement by Murray makes it probable that
the paragraph purporting to come from the Editor,
or some substantial part of it, really emanated from
the Publisher, and the same is definitely asserted in
Polidori's letter to The Morning Chronicle; but
Murray's letter does not settle the question whether
the allegation about a traveller at Geneva was true

INTRODUCTION 21

or false. The Editor's assertion that " he received it
from Dr. Polidori for a small sum " does not by any
means clear up all the facts. It seems quite possible
that there really was a correspondent at Geneva who
sent to the Editor the MS. of The Vampyre, along
with that of Polidori's other tale, and an outline of
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, as expressly affirmed in
the final note signed " Ed." ; and that the Editor,
having no right to publish The Vampyre unless by
authority of its writer, spoke to Polidori about it.
How could Polidori dispose of it " for a small sum "
if he alleged that it was written by Byron, or by any
one other than himself? He averred " that the whole
plan of it was " Byron's — and this is apparently true ;
adding "that it was merely written out by" himself —
in the sense not of having written from Byron's
dictation, but of having composed a story founded
upon Byron's intended incidents. Murray's final
phrase — that Polidori " went to the Editor, and de-
clared that he would deny it " — is loosely expressed,
but seems to mean that he would deny Byron's
authorship of The Vampyre — and so in fact he did.

If we suppose (as did Murray apparently) that
Polidori had in the first instance planned a deliberate
imposture, and had palmed off upon the Editor The
Vampyre as being virtually the writing of Byron, we
are encountered by three difficulties left unexplained :

22 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

( I ) What plea could Polidori advance for having the MS.
and the right of publishing it ? (2) Why did he sell for
" a small sum " a work which, if written by the world-
famous Lord Byron, would be worth a very consider-
able sum ? (3) Why did the Editor pay to Polidori a
sum, whether small or large, for a book which, accord-
ing to this assumption, was avowedly not the writing
of himself, but the writing and property of Byron ?
All these difficulties are avoided, and no other serious
difficulties arise, if we assume that the account given
by Polidori is the true one, viz. that he offered the
tale to the Editor as being his own composition,
strictly modelled upon a series of incidents invented
by Byron.

Polidori's letter, addressed to the Editor of The
Morning Chronicle, was, as I have already said,
delivered to the office of that paper. It was not
however published there, as Messrs. Sherwood, Neely,
and Jones, the publishers of The Vampyre in its book-
form, represented to Polidori that the appearance of
such a letter would tend to compromise them, and he
therefore, out of consideration for this firm, withdrew
the letter unprinted. This is Polidori's own state-
ment, contained in the Introduction to another
romantic tale of his, Emestus Berchtold, published in
1 8 19; being the tale by Polidori which, as stated by
the Editor of The New Monthly Magazine^ had been

INTRODUCTION 23

sent to him along with The Vampyre and the outline
of Frankenstein. Besides all this, the Doctor wrote a
brief letter, published in The Courier on May 5, 18 19,
saying — what was clearly the fact — "Though the
groundwork is certainly Lord Byron's, its development
is mine."

I must now revert for a moment to the " skull-
headed lady." In the Introduction above named
Polidori asserts that that tale, Emestus Berchtold, was
the one which he began at Cologny. It does not
contain any sort of mention of any skull-headed lady.
There is some supernatural machinery in the story, of
a rather futile kind ; it could be excluded without
affecting the real basis of the narrative, which relates
the love-affair and marriage of a young Swiss patriot
with a lady who is ultimately identified as his sister.
As to Mrs. Shelley's allegation that the (non-existent)
skull-headed lady was punished for " peeping through
a keyhole," no such incident exists in Emestus
Berchtold; there is, however, a passage where a certain
Julia seeks to solve a mystery by looking " through
the wainscot of a closet for wood." Her head, after
this inspection, remains exactly what it was before.

The Vampyre was in its way a great success. As
stated in The Dictionary of National Biography^
Byron's name gave Polidori's production great cele-
brity on the Continent, where The Vampyre was

24 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

held to be quite the thing which it behoved Byron
to have written. It formed the groundwork of
Marschner's opera, and nearly half a volume of
Dumas's Memoirs is occupied by an account of the
representation of a French play founded upon it.

THE DIARY

1816. April 2\. — I left London at 10 in the morn
ing, with Lord Byron, Scrope Davies, Esq., and
J. Hobhouse, Esq.

[Mr. Scrope Berdmore Davies had been one of
Byron's fellow-students and intimates at Cambridge
University, and had continued familiar with him
at Newstead Abbey and elsewhere. He has been
described as "no less remarkable for elegance of
taste than for a generous high-mindedness," Mr.
John Cam Hobhouse (afterwards Sir J. C. Hob-
house, and ultimately Lord Broughton de Gifford)
was, it need hardly be said, a peculiarly close friend
of Byron. He had accompanied him in his travels
in Greece prior to the commencement of Childe
Harold, wrote notes to that poem, and to the
last upheld the essential fineness of his Lordship's
character. Byron's intention to travel along with
Hobhouse in the spring of 18 16 was not a new
project conceived in consequence of his separation,
only completed on April 22, from his wife. He had
entertained this scheme before his daughter Ada was

25

26 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

born on December lo, 1815, and had announced it
to his wife, to whom the notion was not agreeable.]

The view from Shooter's Hill was extensive and
beautiful, being on a much larger scale than the view
from Stirling.

[Polidori mentions Stirling, as being no doubt a
reminiscence of his own, from the days when he had
been in Edinburgh to take his medical degree.]

The plain, enamelled with various colours accord-
ing to the different growth of the corn, spread far
before our sight, was divided irregularly by the river.
The Thames next, with its majestic waves, flowed in
the plain below, bearing numerous fleets upon its
flood. Its banks in many parts were beautiful. The
chalky banks were alternated with the swelling hills,
rising from the waves, of the pleasing green-brown,
the effect of the first dawn of spring on the vegetable
creation.

At Canterbury we saw the Cathedral. I know not
how it was, whether my mind had been prepared by
the previous sight of glorious nature to receive
pleasing impressions, but the spot where the high
altar and Thomas a Becket's tomb stood seemed to
me one of the most beautiful effects that I had ever
seen arising from Saxo-Gothic architecture; for,
though it had not all the ^airiness and awe-inspiring
height that I had seen in other cathedrals, yet its

DOVEK 37

simple beauty pleased me more than anything I had
yet seen.

Remounting, we soon arrived at Dover, where we
slept, when the packet-boat captain had sufficiently
disturbed us.

April 25. — This day was spent at Dover The
greater part was occupied in procuring what had
been neglected in London, and in seeing the carriage
well packed up. After dinner, however, we went in
search of Churchill's tomb, raised, we had learned, to
his memory by his friend Wilkes. Arrived at the
house of the sexton, he led us to a ruined church,
passing through which we came into a churchyard,
where children, heedless and unconscious of what
they trampled on, sportively ran amid the raised turf
graves. He pointed out to us a tombstone, un-
distinguished from those of the tradesmen near him,
having merely, like them, a square tablet stuck into
the ground, whereon was written, " Here lie the
remains of the celebrated Churchill.

" Life to the last enjoyed, here Churchill lies.

Candidate.^''

[By Churchill.] The green turf was beginning already
to decay upon his tomb, which when the sexton heard
us lamenting he assured us that his grave, as well as
the rest, would be newly decked as soon as Nature

28 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

had vested its fullest green — for that was an old custom.
Churchill owed, then, only to a common hand what
the pride of a friend refused — the safety of his burial-
place. Wilkes only sought the gratification of his
vanity. While he consigned his friend's last relics to
the keeping of a tablet, he consigned his own pride in
such a friend to the keeping of a column in his own
grounds. Yet I do not know whether the scene was
not more moving, though no vainly pompous inscrip-
tion pointed out the spot where this poet was buried.

There were two authors ; one, the most distin-
guished of his age ; another, whose name is rising
rapidly ; (and a third, ambitious for literary dis-
tinction). What a lesson it was for them when,
having asked the sexton if he knew why so many
came to see this tomb, he said : " I cannot tell ; I had
not the burying of him."

[Byron, after settling in the Villa Diodati near
Geneva, recorded this same incident in a composition
entitled ChurchilVs Grave, a Fact Literally Rendered.
He wrote a memorandum to say that in this poem he
had intentionally imitated the style of Wordsworth,
"its beauties and its defects." The composition
therefore is essentially un-Byronic in method, and
perhaps Wordsworth would not have recognized in
it many of his own "beauties." The Hues are as
follows —

DOVER 29

I stood beside the grave of him who blazed

The comet of a season, and I saw
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed

With not the less of sorrow and of awe
On that neglected turf and quiet stone,
With name no clearer than the names unknown
Which lay unread around it. And I ask'd

The gardener of that ground why it might be
That for this plant strangers his memory task'd,

Through the thick deaths of half a century.
And thus he answered : ' Well, I do not know
Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so :
He died before my day of sextonship,

And I had not the digging of this grave.'
And is this all? I thought; and do we rip

The veil of immortality, and crave
I know not what of honour and of light
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight
So soon and so successless ? As I said.
The architect of all on which we tread
(For earth is but a tombstone) did essay
To extricate remembrance from the clay
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought.

Were it not that all life must end in one,
Of which we are but dreamers. As he caught

As 'twere the twilight of a former sun,
Thus spoke he : ' I believe the man of whom
You wot, who lies in this selected tomb.
Was a most famous writer in his day;
And therefore travellers step from out their way
To pay him honour ; — and myself whate'er
Your honour pleases.' Then most pleased I shook
From out my pocket's avaricious nook
Some certain coins of silver, which (as 'twere
Perforce) I gave this man— though I could spare
So much but inconveniently. Ye smile
(I see ye, ye profane ones, all the while)

30 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.
You are the fools, not I ; for I did dwell
With a deep thought and with a softened eye
On that old sexton's natural homily,
In which there was obscurity and fame —
The glory and the nothing of a name."

Charles Churchill the satirist, a clergyman who
had given up his standing in the Church, had
died in 1764 at Boulogne, aged only thirty-three.
It is clear that his renown was still considerable
in 1 8 16; it is now barely more than a literary
reminiscence.]

We then returned home, where, having delivered
my play into their hands, I had to hear it laughed at
— (an author has always a salvo) partly, I think,
from the way in which it was read. One of the party,
however — to smoothe, I suppose, my ruffled spirits —
took up my play, and apparently read part with
great attention, drawing applause from those who
before had laughed. He read on with so much
attention that the others declared he had never been
so attentive before.

[Further on it would appear that this play was
named Cajetan. I know nothing about it. The name
Cajetan is in Italian Gaetano, which was the Christian
name of Polidori's father.]

I afterwards went out, and did a very absurd thing,
which I told ; and found I had not only hurt myself

THE CHANNEL 31

but might possibly hurt others for whom I cared
much more.

April 26. — We embarked at 9 o'clock, much
hurried, with three servants.

[This means, to judge from a published letter by-
Byron, 9 o'clock on the evening of April 25. The
three servants were Berger (a Swiss), William
Fletcher, and Robert Rushton. Mr. Davies and Mr.
Hobhouse, it will be understood, remained ashore.]

When at a distance, we waved our hands and hats,
bidding adieu. The wind was completely in our
teeth, but we made the passage in sixteen hours.
The coast of Dover is very striking, though miserably
barren-looking. The cliff is steep, though not such
as Shakespear paints. The castle — at a distance,
which is the only way I viewed it — is miserable.
Sailing from England, I for a long time kept my eye
upon its stern white cliffs, thinking on her who bade
me join her remembrance with the last sight of my
native soil.

[This points pretty clearly to a love-passage, perhaps
a matrimonial engagement. As a fact Polidori never
married. The lady may possibly have been Eliza
Arrow, a relative in India, with whom he, at a rather
earlier date, had interchanged various letters.]

They at last faded from my sight, and all on board
looked dreary ; the sea dashed over us, and all wore

32 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

an aspect of grief. Towards night a most beautiful
spectacle was seen by myself, who alone remained on
deck. The stars shedding merely a twilight enabled
me to see the phosphoric light of the broken foam in
all its splendour. But the most beautiful moment was
that of its first appearance : no sound around save the
sullen rushing of the vessel, and the hoarse cries of
the heaving sailor ; no light save a melancholy
twilight, which soothed the mind into forgetfulness of
its grief for a while — a beautiful streak following the
lead through the waves. We arrived at Ostend at
2 o'clock in the morning.

[Polidori's chronology is a little confusing here. If
the party left Dover at 9 p.m. on April 25, and
took sixteen hours in the sea-passage, they must have
reached Ostend at i in the afternoon. There is also
a confusion immediately afterwards, for he repeats
the date for which he has already accounted, viz.]

April 26. — We passed through the gates, paying
a franc a head, and went to the Cour Imp^riale. We
were astonished at the excellent inn and good treat-
ment, except that I got a dreadful headache from
the smell of paint in my bedroom, and that the tea
was perfumed.

[It was, I believe, at this point of the narrative that
my aunt Charlotte Polidori cut out a peccant passage.
I seem to remember the precise diction of it, which

OSTEND 33

was this : " As soon as he reached his room, Lord
Byron fell like a thunderbolt upon the chambermaid."
Such at any rate was the substance of the statement.
The other statement which my aunt excluded came
somewhat further on, when Dr. Polidori was staying
near Geneva. He gave some account of a visit of his
to some haunt of the local Venus Pandemos. I think
the police took some notice of it. The performance
was not decorous, but was related without any verbal
impropriety.]

Arising in the morning, I went upon a stroll round
the town. Saw little girls of all ages with head-
dresses ; books in every bookseller's window of the
most obscene nature ; women with wooden shoes ;
men of low rank basking in the sun as if that would
evaporate their idleness. The houses generally good
old style, very like a Scotch town, only not quite so
filthy. Very polite custom-house officers, and very
civil waiters. Fine room painted as a panorama, all
French-attitudinized. Went into a shop where no one
spoke French. Tried German ; half-a-dozen women
burst out laughing at me. Luckily for myself, in a
good humour ; laughed with them. Obliged to buy
two books I did not want, because I let a quarto fall
upon a fine girl's head while looking at her eyes.
Coaches of the most horrid construction ; apparently
some fine horses, others small. Fortifications look
3

34 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

miserable. Once stood a fine siege, when 40,000 on one
side and 80 on the other fed fowls and manured the
fields. What for? For religion? No — for money.
There was the spring of all. As long as only religion
and rights were affected, bigoted religionists and wild
republicans were alone concerned ; but a step too far,
and all was ruined.

[The allusion here is to the great siege of Ostend,
1 60 1 to 1604.]

We set off at 3, with four horses. Postillion with
boots to his hips, nankeens, leather hat with quaker
brim, only neatly rounded with black riband ; a blue
and red coat, joined to which a most rascally face, with
lips that went a few lines beyond the brijn of his hat.
A dreadful smacker of his whip, and a driver of four
horses from the back of one of the hindermost. We
were obliged to hire a caleche to send with our lug-
gage. The rascal made us pay three times too much
at each of his barriers ; but, after having (on account
of the horses not being ready at the next post) gone
beyond his beat, he allowed the toll-keepers to be
honest, and only take a few centimes instead of a
franc. The country very flat, highly cultivated ; sand,
no waste. Roads paved in the middle, with trees on
each side. Country, from the interspersion of houses,
spires, cottages, etc., delightful ; everything comfort-
able, no appearance of discontent.

BRUGES 35

We got out of our carriage at a place where the
horses ate bread and hay, and walked on to a church-
yard, where we found no tombstones, no funeral-pomp,
no flattering eulogy, but simply a wooden cross at
each grave's head and foot. On the side of the church-
steeple, at a little height, was made a niche wherein
statues formed a crucifixion, as an object to excite
reverence and adoration of God in every passenger.
We passed on, and arrived at Bruges at the fall of
the evening. Our passports were dispensed with on
our mentioning that we were not stopping. We
entered one of the most beautiful towns I ever saw ;
every house seemed substantial — had some ornament
either of fretwork or lines — all seem clean and neat.
We stopped at the post. We were shown into the
postmaster's parlour on our asking for something to
eat — well furnished — better even than a common
middleman's house in London. N.B. — Everywhere
6 francs for a bottle of Rhenish. Women generally
pretty. Flemish face has no divinity — all pleasing
more than beautiful — a sparkling eye in a full round.
Their pictures of every age have the mark of their
country.

As we went from Bruges, twilight softened all the
beauty, and I do not know how to describe the feel-
ing of pleasure we felt in going through its long roof-
fretted streets, bursting on to spots where people were

36 THE DIARY OF POLIDORl

promenading amidst short avenues of trees. We
passed on. At the gates I saw a boy with sand in
his hand let it through his fingers laughingly, heed-
less of the myriads whose life hung upon each sand.
We passed on at lo. We came to a village where we
heard the sound of music. The innkeeper, on our
enquiring what it was, asked us politely in to hear a
concert of amateurs. We descended, and were grati-
fied and surprised at hearing, in a village of 5000 souls,
a full band playing difficult though beautiful music.
One march particularly struck us. But what was
our surprise, when the door opened, to view the
group : none apparently above the rank of labourers,
yet they met three times a week. In our country the
amusement is to reel drunk as many. There was
one figure manifestly consumptive, yet he was blowing
an enormous trombone.

Within a few miles of Gand, I was wakened from
a pleasant fireside in England by my companion say-
ing *• They have lost their way " ; and, seeing a house
near me, I jumped out to enquire, when to my great
fear I saw it was deserted. I immediately suspected
something, and went back for a pistol, and then
thundered at the door ; no one came. Looking
round, I saw other houses ; towards which upon my
moving the postillion got off, and, telling me in
French, as a consolation, that he could not under-

GHENT 37

stand it, went with me towards a house where there
was light, and suddenly ran off. I immediately went
to the carriage, and we gave sabres to the servants ;
when he ran back from out of sight, and knocked
again at the door and roused two, who told us the
way. By the by, we had crossed several times the
bridge, and from the road and back again, whereas
we had nothing to do but to go straight on, instead of
which he crossed over and was going back in the
direction of Bruges, when our servant stopped him.
I cannot explain his conduct ; he was dreadfully
frightened.

We arrived at Ghent at 3 in the morning, and
knocked some time at the gates, but at last, by means
of a few francs, got through — passports not asked for.
Got to the Hotel des Pays Bas, where Count Artois
resided while at Ghent. We were ushered into a
splendid room, got excellent Rhenish, butter, cheese,
etc., and went to bed.

April 27. — At Gand Charles the 1st of Spain was
born. It was here he really showed the insufficiency of
ambition and all the joys of manhood. After having
at Brussels resigned to Philip his extensive dominions,
he came here, and enjoyed many days while passing
over the scenes of his youth, which neither the splen-
dour attached to a European or an Indian crown nor
to the conquests of his powerful and noble views could

38 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

efface. He did not seek Pavia ; no, it was at Gand
that he sought for his last draught of worldly joy.
The town was worthy of it, if beauty and antiquity, if
riches and liberty with all their train, could render it
worthy of him. This town has all the beauty ot
Bruges, but more extensive : finer houses perhaps,
fine cathedral, fine paintings, fine streets, fine canal.
The streets are perhaps the finest I have seen ; not so
unpleasantly regular as London, not so high, but more
rich in outside.

We visited the Cathedral ; and, after having been
accustomed to the tinselly ornaments of our Catholic
chapels, and the complete want of any in the Scotch
and English churches, we were much pleased with the
Cathedral's inside dress : paintings that were by the
hand of masters ; the fortune of a bishop expended
in building the part near the altar in marble and
statues not contemptible, united with the airy, high
fretted roof and little light, impressive of awe. Under
this Cathedral is the first Belgian church that was
built in the reign of Charlemagne, 800 years, I think,
after Christ. It is low-roofed, but so strong it bears
the weight of the Cathedral upon it. There were
several paintings preserved in it (before the date of
oil-painting), where the colours are mixed with white
of egg. Some curious tombs, where the different
styles are evident. In the earliest tomb some of the

GHENT 39

draperies on the relief are in a bold fine style. One
of the earliest has a bishop, where all his robes are
carved out, with almost the threads of his vest.
Others, however, are for general effect. We mounted
450 steps to the top of the steeple; whence we saw
a complete horizon of plain, canals, intersecting trees,
and houses and steeples thrown here and there, with
Gand below at our feet. The sea at a distance, bound
by the hands of man, which pointed " So far shall ye
go and no farther." Bruges held in the horizon its
steeples to our view, and many hamlets raised from
out their surrounding wood their single spires to
sight.

Treading again the iron-plated 450 stairs, we came
into the street ; and, mounting into a fiacre, we went
to the Ecole de Dessin, where we found a well-provided
gallery of paintings, with two students, unmoved by
the visitors around, painting with the patience if not
the genius of Dutch masters. They were rather a
nuisance on the present occasion, as one covered with
his machine a chef d'oeuvre of Rubens, the St. Rock
amongst the Sick of the Plague. There were two more
by the same, of St. Roch and his Dog, etc. They
were in a different style of colouring — sombre and
grey ; none of his gay draperies that I, no connoisseur,
thought were constituents of Rubens. I saw — I do not
remember whose, but — a picture that struck me much,

40 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

The Beheading of St. Jean^ where all the interest and

beauty consisted in a dog smelling the dead body.

There were two of Van Eyck, the first (according to

the Flemish) who invented painting in oil ; where the

colouring was splendid and very like the stiffness of

glass, but the faces were very good. Kruger had

many here in honour of Charles the Vth. Amongst

the others, one rather (though probably not meant as

such) satirical : Charles, landing, takes hold of Dame

Africa, who quietly points to a lion at her feet. Query

— to drive him away ? There was a Judgment of

Solomon by the same, where the child was painted

dead with most perfect nature ; so much so that my

companion, who is a father, could not bear its sight.

Teniers has here a Temptation of St. Anthony : strange

caricature — what a satire ! If mere deceit is the acme

of perfection, some Dutchmen may snatch the palm

from either Apelles or Parrhasius. They paint boards

with an engraving upon them, or a door,^ or aught

else, so inimitably that it deceived my friend. We

went into the Academy of Casts, of Design, etc.

There are generally 400 pupils in this town : many

fall off annually without great advancement, and are

trod on the heels by others.

1 The word, as written by Charlotte Polidori, seems to be
" dole " rather than anything else. It looks as if she had copied
the form of Dr. Polidori's word without understanding what it
was, I substitute " door," but this is done faute de mieux,

GHENT 41

We thence proceeded to another (we might say)
cathedral. The steeple is not yet finished : the model
is exhibited, with the curses of the Flemish exhibitors
upon the "grande nation " for having taken the funds
for its finishing. There are more good pictures than
even in the Cathedral : the columns also please me
more, being round, with a Gothic approach to Corinth-
ian capital. The most beautiful painting I have yet
seen is here (though I probably shall not be held out
in my opinion by connoisseurs) — by Pollent, repre-
senting the trial of the true Cross upon a sick lady.
The harmony of colouring, the soberness (without
the commonly accompanying dulness) of the colour-
ing, the good design and grouping, are, in my
opinion, beautiful. Not even the splendid colouring
of Rubens can make his pictures, in my eyes, equal
to it.

[I do not know who is the painter termed Pollent
by Polidori : on p. 50 there is the name Polenck,
which may designate the same painter. Neither of
these names can be traced by me in a catalogue of
pictures in the Museum of Antwerp.]

There is one standing by it, of Vandyck, which has
some sublimity in it, perhaps arising from indistinct-
ness. It represents the effect of Christ's last sigh. By
this altar stood twelve small pictures, hung out at this
time for people to tread the " way of Calvary," repre-

42 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

senting the different stages of our Saviour's sufferings.
There were many more pictures, but I cannot re-
member ; seeing so many crowded in the Gallery put
others out of my head. But there were painted in the
Cathedral of St. Bavon, on the marble in the style
of reliefs, different subjects of Scripture in a most
masterly style ; and so well were the shades managed
that we could hardly believe the cicerone when he
assured us they were paintings.

In the Gallery of Casts there were the statues of
two English ladies of London by an artist who resided
thirty years there, and upon his return bestowed these
as his finest works. The faces, though not perfect or
Grecian, I must say for my countrywomen, pleased
me almost as much as any Venus de' Medici.

I have found the people polite, so far as showing
the way and then not waiting for a reward — taking
off their hats as if^ou had done them the favour.

April 28. — We set off at 8 this morning to go to
Anvers ; but, after having proceeded some way, one
of the wheels refused to turn, and, after at the next
village hammering a long while, I rode off in a passing
caleche to Ghent, where I put a marechal with his
assistant into a voiture, and, mounting myself on
horseback, returned to the coach. My horse was par-
ticularly fond of the shade ; and, a house being near
one of the barriers, he kindly stopped there to cool

GHENT 43

me. I, after waiting some time, began to press him
to go forward, when he kicked etc. We went, while
the carriage was being repaired, into a cottage, where
all was extremely neat, and we saw two pictures in
it that certainly would not shame the collection of
many of our soi-disant cognoscenti. The old man
was sick of a fever ; and, upon giving him medicine,
his kind half sympathetically fell ill of a toothache.
Never did I see such chips of the old block as his two
daughters. They were very kind. It being Sunday,
we saw all the women of the village — all ugly : indeed,
I have not seen a pretty woman since I left Ostend.

[This reference to April 28 as being a Sunday puts
a stop to any preceding question as to the right day
of the month, for in fact April 28, 18 16, was a Sunday.]

On proceeding on our journey, we were stopped for
oul: passports, and the fellow began bullying us, think-
ing we were French ; but, when he heard we were
English, he became cap in hand, and let us go : in-
deed, we have not yet shown our passports.

Having eaten, I issued forth in search of the Pro-
menade, and found the canal with walks called La
Copeure. Many ladies, all ugly without exception —
the only pretty woman being fat and sixty. It very
much resembled the Green Basin, where our West-end
cits trot on one another's heels with all possible care :
not quite so crowded. Coming back, I tourized to the

44 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Roi d'Espagne, where, as in a coffee-house, I found
a room full of disreputable women and card-tables.
This, instead of the streets, is the lounge for such
women. I went to the Cafe Grand, where by means
of mirrors some excellent effects are produced.
There also were billiards, cards, dice, etc. A cup of
coffee, some centimes ; a glass of lemonade, two sous :
a woman presides at the end of the room.

" Lord Byron " was in the Ghent Gazette. Lord
Byron encouraged me to write Cajetan, and to con-
tinue being a tragedian. Murray offered i^iSO for
two plays, and ;^500 for my tour.

April 29. — Looking from my window, I saw a
native dashing about in a barouche and four. There
is in the town a society of nobles, and another of
literati. Mr. Scamp has a fine collection of pictures,
which I did not see. In Ghent, as well as in all other
places where I have been, the barber's sign is Mam-
brino's helm. On the Sunday mornings there is a
market for flowers in pot in the Place des Armes.

We set off at 11 in the morning, and passed
through some fine villages : one of which, St.
Nicholas, the mistress of the inn told me Buonaparte
made into a town — " mais il n'y a pas des postes."
The country is tiresomely beautiful. Fine avenues,
which make us yawn with admiration ; not a single
variation; no rising ground — yes, one spot raised

BELGIUM 45

for a windmill. The landscape is as unchangeable
as the Flemish face. The houses white-washed,
with a row of trees before them ; the roofs tiled, and
the windows large. Indeed, the appearance of com-
fort in the places we have passed through is much
greater than any I have seen in England. We
have only seen one country-villa, and that very Eng-
lish : its pasture had the only firs we have yet seen.
The avenues are sometimes terminated by a church
or a house — the church very ugly; and both very
tiresome, as they always prove much farther off than
is at first expected. The ground cultivated, and with-
out a weed — no waste ground. The plough moves as
if cutting water, the soil is so light a sand. Women
work in the fields as well as men. No more difference
is found in the face of the inhabitants than in the face
of the country. Nothing striking, all evenness, no
genius, much stupidity. They seemed to spend all
their fund of cleanliness upon their fields and houses,
for they carry none about them.

An oldish man wears a three-cornered cocked hat,
capacious breeches, black or blue stockings, buckles,
and a great-coat ; young, fancy travelling-caps. The
women wear enormous gold ear-rings, large wooden
shoes. Their dress is a kind of bed-gown, like the
Scotch. Young girls of eight in town have their hair
dressed with a net or cap. In towns and villages

46 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

the better peasant-women wear a black silk mantle
with a hood, that looks well. Multitudes of children
everywhere, who tumble and run by the side of the
carriage to gain a few centimes. In the larger villages
the market-places are splendidly large, with a little
square place in the middle, with pollards and a statue.
The houses seem comfortable everywhere. Going
into the house of a postmaster, we saw some English
prints. At another, our servants having got down
and comfortably seated themselves to a bottle of
wine etc., the postmistress, on our getting out, took
us for the servants, and told us " the messieurs Anglais
were in yon room " — and then made us a thousand
apologies. At every posthorse place there is kept
a book of the posts : many barriers — every \\ mile.

At Gand they had told us we could not reach
Anvers without passing the Scheldt at 2 o'clock —
we passed it at 6|.

The town of Antwerp makes a good figure at a
distance, chiefly on account of its Cathedral, which
has a very airy appearance, the steeple showing the
sky between its meeting arches. About five steeples.
The fortifications, which enabled Carnot to make such
a defence, produce no great effect on the sight.

[The defence by Carnot was, when Polidori wrote,
a quite recent event, 1814.]

The Scheldt is a fine river, not so large as our

ANTWERP 47

Thames, and covered with ugly Dutch vessels. We
passed our coach in a boat.

[This coach was a formidable affair. According
to Mr. Pryse Lockhart Gordon, it was "copied from
the celebrated one of Napoleon taken at Genappe,
with additions. Besides a lit de repos, it contained a
library, a plate-chest, and every apparatus for dining."]

On landing, twenty porters ran off with our things
to a cart. As they were passing, one in all the pomp
of office stopped us, and asked for our passports, which
(on handing to him) he detained, giving his directions
to the police.

The older parts of Antwerp have a novel and
strange effect by the gable-ends being all to the
street, ornamented — very acute angles. The Place de
Meer is fine. The old street, the finest I ever saw,
has some fine houses. Many of the houses have
English labels on them. In our sitting-room are two
beds. Indeed, the towns are beautiful : their long
streets, their houses all clean-stuccoed or white-
washed, with strange old-fashioned fronts, the frequent
canals, the large places and venerable cathedrals.
Their places are much finer than our squares, for they
contain trees, and are open without railing.

Went to the caf^, and saw all playing at dominoes.
Read The Times till the 23rd. Fine furniture, every-
where of cherry-tree.

48 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

At Gand in the Cathedral the cicerone laid great
stress on the choir-seats being all made of solid acajou.
The master of the inn at Ghent assures me the
carriage of Buonaparte was made in Paris — the body-
carriage at Brussels : no English work. Plenty of
Americans in the town.

April 30. — Got up late, and went to look at the
carriage, and found that the back had been not of the
best-made. Called a mardchal, who assured me it
could not be better. Breakfasted. Then looked at
an old caleche, for which asked 60 naps. Refused it.

Got, with a guide, a caleche to see the lions. The
town is large : apparently, not a proportionable
quantity of misery. Women better-looking. At all
the fountains. Madonnas — and upon all the corners
of the streets, with lamps before them. Lamps with
reverberators strung on ropes into the middle of the
streets. Went to the Cathedral. Everywhere we
have been, dreadful complaints of French vandalism.
In this chapel it has been shameless : once crowded
with altars of marble, now there are about five — only
two marble, the others painted in imitation. Pictures
were stolen — altars sold by auction — only one saved,
bought by a barber for a louis. The others, with all
the tombs, monuments, everything, broken by these
encouragers of the fine arts. So great was the ruin
that there were five feet of fragments over the church

ANTWERP 49

— even the columns that support the roof were so
much defaced that they were obliged, in restoring it,
to pare them all much thinner. Some pictures were
carried to Paris, of which some are now about to be
replaced. It was the feast of St. Anthony, and many
candles were burning about, and some relics were
fixed above the doors. In many parts of the chapel
were frames containing silver representations, very
small, of bad limbs etc., offered by the devout. Many
images over altars, dressed out in silk and taffeta :
most common one, the Virgin Mary. Though the
French acted with all the spirit of Vandals and true
Gauls, yet to their very mischief is owing the greatest
beauty of the Cathedral, the choir not being divided
from the church, so that from one end to the other
there is a complete perspective and one of the finest
effects I have seen, the airiness and length being now
proportionate. There is one great defect in the internal
decorations — that they are Greek. What bad taste
it is to ornament Gothic with Corinthian columns
must be evident : to make it also more glaring, the
marble is all coloured. There is here a fine marble
altar-railing. Indeed, in all the churches we have
here seen they are beautiful — especially where boys,
called in Italian " puttini," are sculptured. The con-
fessionals are of wood, with evangelical figures, nearly
as large as life, between each box — not badly carved.
4

so THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

We went to see another church, wherein is the
tomb of Rubens.

[This is the Church of St. Jaques.]

It is in a chapel by itself, where annually a mass
is said for his soul. It is worthy of him : ornamented
by a painting, by himself, of St. George, and a statue
he brought with him from Rome of the Holy Virgin.
The church in which he is buried was saved from
pillage by the priests belonging to it revolutionizing.
It is crowded with altars and pictures — some Rubens,
some Polenck, and others. There is a painting by
Metsys, who originally was a marechal, and who with
his mere hammer formed the decorations to a pump,
which are not bad. The Latin inscription on his
monumental stone refers to a story related of him :
that, upon courting the daughter of Francis Floris,
the artist with indignation talked about the dirty
rascal's impudence, he being merely a blacksmith ;
on which Metsys set off for Rome, and upon his
return asked the daughter to introduce him to her
father's room of painting : where, finding a picture
not finished, he painted a bee — that excited the in-
dignation of Floris's pocket-handkerchief, and gained
him his daughter. I have seen the picture, and it
might be true. The pump is not bad, being merely
beaten into shape. On the top is a giant who used
to cut off merchants' gains by means of tolls, and

ANTWERP 51

their hands by means of axes. He used to throw an
iron band into the scales of his tradesmen ; and from
thence, 'tis said, Antwerp got its name.

[This may be " said " : but a less legendary deriva-
tion of the Flemish name Antwerpen is " aent werf,"
or " on the wharf."]

The sides of this church all along are lined with
confessionals.

In the Church des Augustins we saw Rubens's
Assembly of the Saints^ from Paris ; where he has
shown how weak he could be in composition, and in
vanity — for it is the third picture in which he has
put himself in St. George's armour. The composition
is confused, without an object to fix the attention.
A Vandyck near him is much superior.

[Polidori's observations about Flemish paintings
are generally indicative of liking, more or less : but
Byron went dead against them. In a letter of his
to his half-sister, Mrs. Leigh, written from Brussels
on May i, 1816, we find: "As for churches and
pictures, I have stared at them till my brains are
like a guide-book : the last (though it is heresy to
say so) don't please me at all. I think Rubens a
very great dauber, and prefer Vandyck a hundred
times over — but then I know nothing about the
matter. Rubens's women have all red gowns and
red shoulders ; to say nothing of necks, of which

52 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

they are more liberal than charming. It may all
be very fine, and I suppose it may be art, for 'tis not
nature." Again, in a letter to John Murray from
Milan, October 15, 1816: "The Flemish school,
such as I saw it in Flanders, I utterly detested,
despised, and abhorred."]

Here is also the famous picture of Jordaens, of The
Martyrdom of St. Apollonia. Colouring approaches
Rubens ; but abominable composition — crowded, large,
numerous figures in a small space. There were some
modern paintings of existing artists — meagre statue-
compositions.

In the Musee we saw many Rubenses. The famous
Descent from the Cross : the effect of the white sheet
is wonderfully beautiful. Picture's drawing I do not
like. The Christ seems not dead, as there is certainly
action ; but the colouring is splendidly rich. The
Crucifixion near it, inferior in all. In a sketch near
it he has not succeeded so well in the white sheet, it
being not so splendidly white. We could only see
the side-pieces of the great Crucifixion, as the large
piece was being framed. In these there is much
caricature drawing : a woman rising from the dead—
surely a woman large as Guy Warwick giant's wife,
if ever he had one : caricature physiognomies, and
most hellish egregious breasts, which a child refuses,
with horror in its face. His horses have much spirit —

ANTWERP 53

true Flemish size. Indeed, divest Rubens of his rich
apparel, and he is a mere dauber in design. There
is a Mary going to Elizabeth^ looking more like a
cardinal : indeed, my companion, Lord Byron, took
her for one of the red-vested nobles. No divinity
about his Christs ; putrefaction upon his Gods ; ex-
aggerated passion about his men and women, painted
not all-concealing. In his picture of The Adoration
of the Magi, query did he not intend to play upon
the people by passing off a caricature for a religious
painting? The royal personage in green seems as if
his eyes had grown big after dinner. He has no
costume properly applied : the Virgin in the manger
is dressed meretriciously in silks and lace. Then
look at our blessed Saviour showing His wounds.
His finest painting is his Crucifixion in which is the
white sheet : but there are defects. What then must
be the power of colouring which causes you to view
his paintings with pleasure ! It is like melodious
music which makes you forget the absurd words of
an old English song.

Vandyck, in my opinion, was much superior to
Rubens. His colouring, near his, is sombre ; but
then his design is more perfect, his impressions
remain longer in the mind distinct, and do not fade
away into ideas of red and blue round white. A
little Crucifix of his is worth his rival's largest

54 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

paintings. His Christ Dead is beautiful, wherein are
contained the Blessed Virgin, St. Mary Magdalene,
and St. John weeping: the different expressions of
grief, the unison of colouring with the subject, the
composition, all excellent.

From the Cathedral we went to see the works
of Napoleon. We first saw the Basins. They are
not so large as our West India Docks — square — but
are capable of holding ships of the line; there are
two. Between them is what was formerly the
Hanseatic Hall, now magazines. When the English
were last here they threw bombs, but this was of no
avail ; dung was put upon the ships, and men were
at hand in case of fire. From the Basins we went
along the quays — very long, along the labouring
Scheldt ; then into the places for marine arsehals,
where the vessels were on the stocks — the finest works
I ever saw, now useless through our jealousy. The
rope-house, quite finished, is enormously long, and is
to be pulled down. The timbers for the ship were
numbered, and carried to Amsterdam. The citadel
was mean-looking, though so strong. The chief
batteries are as old as Alva's time — there was one
pointed out as erected by Colonel Crawford. Before
Napoleon's time there was little done towards the
formation of these basins and others ; but, said our
guide, "he decreed they should be made, and they

ANTWERP 55

appeared." They are all surrounded with high walls
to hinder the escape of the employed. Carnot has
commanded here twice. He was rather disliked, yet
they had rather have him than any other. They all
agree in his genius. In the time of the Walcheren
business the English were expected with open arms :
only three hundred soldiers — Bernadotte was general.
The siege was not very strict on the last occasion,
and no mischief was done on either side. In the
Basins there have been twenty-six line. In the dread
of a siege all the suburbs were destroyed and all the
trees around. The suburbs rose immediately, the
trees in years. In the citadel there are 1500 forgats.
Sometimes the number exceeds 2000.

Having seen thus much, we returned, lunched, and
rode off. Hardly gone a little way when our carriage
broke down. The trees are more various — vegetation
more advanced — more inequality of ground — more
pollards — more apparent misery — more villas, some
pretty — more clipped hedges — more like England —
fine, large, town-like villages. Carriage broke again —
walked to Malines — arrived there at ten. Women
improve.

At Antwerp, in one church on the outside, saw a
supposed exact imitation of the Sepulchre, though I
do not know how it came seated " in purgatory " ; as
there certainly is a place so called round it, full of

56 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

the damned and flames. The place is grotto-work.
Within there is a representation of our Lord swathed
in linen. All over there are statues, so so. David is
at a respectable distance from purgatory : this makes
it the more remarkable that the Sepulchre is seated
in purgatory. Indeed, indeed, there is much absurdity.

There is an academy for drawing and painting,
with a museum. The Place is in a garden.

On arriving at Malines we found Mr. Pradt gone
from his bishopric amongst his brethren ; and we are
assured he was a " vraiment frangais," and that he
was not a " Catholique," and that this town wanted a
" vraiment Catholique."

[The Abb^ de Pradt, born in Auvergne in 1759,
had been a champion of the monarchy in the Con-
stituent Assembly of 1789-91. Napoleon made him
Archbishop of Malines towards 1809, but afterwards
viewed him with disfavour. He resigned the Arch-
bishopric in 1 8 16, receiving a pension. He wrote a
number of books on political and public matters, and
died in 1837.]

The country from Antwerp to Malines becomes
more and more like England : trees more various,
not the same dead flat but varied with gentle swells,
many pollards, and more miserable cottages.

There is in the Cathedral [in Antwerp] a painting
by Floris — the one on which is the bee — where he has

BRUSSELS 57

shown great imagination and fire in the devils. It is
the victory of the angels when fighting against the
devils.

Maj/ I. — As soon as up, I went to the Cathedral,
which has a fine tower. On entering I saw many
pictures. None that I saw seemed particularly good.
The church was pretty full of people, who really
seemed devout. They were not the old and weak,
but there was of every age. The young maiden was
seen by the side of decrepit age, beauty by deformity,
childhood by manhood. The effect on the mind is
contagious. Many masses were going on at the
same time. A woman went round for money for the
chairs. Here I saw the first Christian caryatides.

We soon set off for Brussels. Between V. and
that town the road is beautiful ; a canal on one side,
fine trees forming a long avenue diversified with
glimpses of a rich country. We passed the Castle of
Lac, the former residence of Buonaparte. It has a
fine front upon an eminence, but the dome stands
forth in glaring ugliness. We entered Brussels by
the Allee Verte, a fine promenade.

Brussels, the old town, is not so fine as Antwerp,
Ghent, or Bruges. The Grand Marche is very beauti-
ful, only the buildings seem to be neglected. Fine
public offices, with a tall spire, on one side — the Mairie
opposite. The Place Royale is very fine ; the fronts

58 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

of the houses and hotels around seeming together
to form parts of one great palace ; and the church on
one side, with the housy wings, has a fine effect in
spite of the ugly tower at the top. The gardens are
beautiful with green, and well laid out in walks,
with groups and termites — the Palace opposite. The
entrance from the Place Royale presents a fine front,
and the suburbs round it are also good. We are at
the Hotel d'Angleterre. Saw Morning Chronicles,
which are again dutysied.

Brussels was not at all fortified in the Waterloo
time. The Germans at one time had retreated as far
as the gates, which were obliged to be shut against
them. In case of a retreat there would have been a
pleasant rush, almost as great as at a fashionable
rout, as they must all have passed through Brussels.
The carriage was put under hand. Crowds of
English.

May 2. — We have seen many, many soldiers. No
wonder they were light of foot when not more heavy
of age, for none have beards yet except some few
cavalry.

The English women are the only good-looking
women in Brussels ; though, with true English
Bullism, they vest here a complete Anglomanian
costume, preserving their French fashions for the
English winds to waft. The women of Brabant and

BRUSSELS 59

the Netherlands are all ugly to the eye after the
piquant begins to pall, for there are no regular
beauties or beauty of expression, except that levity
which tells of lightness of cares and youth.

It is not for a foreigner to call a thing absurd
because it does not tally with his ideas, or the
ladies' costume, except the black mantle, should be
put down as such by me. The men also are short
and bad-looking, either consummate impudence
or complete insignificance — no individuality. The
indelicacy of these Belgians is gross ; all kinds of
disgusting books publicly sold, and exposed to the
eyes of all young damsels — beastliness publicly
exhibited on the public monuments — fountains with
men vomiting with effort a stream of water — and
still worse. The town (Brussels) is situated on an
eminence, and is really poor in comparison of the
other Belgic towns by us seen.

After dinner, having dressed, I went, having written
two letters, to the theatre. Mounting a voiture, I was
soon there. Ascending some stairs, I came to a door
where, after some knocking, a man took my money,
and gave me tickets, which, changed twice, brought
me to the first row of boxes. The first look at the
lobbies was sufficient to give me an idea of all the
rest — misery, misery, misery, wherever one turned —
to the floor, to the ceiling, to the wall, to the box-

6o THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

wall, all garret of the St. Giles style. Most of the
doors had Abonnement written on them. I got into
one, and what a sight ! boxes dirty with filth. One
chandelier was sufficient for the pockets of a Brussels
manager, hung from the middle. Pit divided into
two parts of different prices, boxes into three,
and a gallery. Chairs, not benches, in the boxes.
Ladies came and sat and talked, and talked and sat
and stood, and went away. Many English ladies.
Orchestra began — all violins, seven in all. Curtain
up — a farce : no — it did not make me laugh. How
call that a theatrical amusement which only seems
fitted to excite the pleasurable sensation of yawn-
ing? It was French. An actress, the best amongst
them, spoke French like a base pig; another con-
torted the fine lady into one with a paralytic stroke
after sitting up at cards ; the gentlemen like purlieu-
bullies; and high life was copied from the waiting-
maids of butchers' ladies. I was a little surprised at
the applause that a lady actress gained. It moved
me astonishingly : not her acting, but the lookers-on
acting pleasure. At last came the wind whistling
through the reeds, the thunder-hurling cheeks, and lash-
ing hands, to my great admiration. It moved phlegm.
One who was to act Blondel was vomiting at
home. I went behind the scenes, and saw dismay in
every face, and terror in every limb. The curtain
drew up, and the play began. Hisses hisses, hisses.

BRUSSELS 6i

It fell, and fear increased. Some time was spent
in cogitation. The venturous gold-decked hero
advanced, retired, was rebuked by the police and
forced to advance. Hisses. He said to the audience
he was forced to advance. They listened, and qui-
proquos commenced between the players and the
audience, with the sonorous hiss of anger. The police
saw all was in vain, and ordered the actors off the
boards. I in the meantime was chatting with two
apparent goddesses, who very concisely explained the
trembling of the actors, etc., by telling me of real
showers of eggs, etc. As I left the house I heard
groans and hollow sounds, and cries of "Give me back
my money : I am an abonne\ and have seen nothing."
I ran — I and the police pushing on, the mob pushing
us back, etc. Going along the lobbies, what was my
wonder to stumble on a bookseller's shop, where was
an assemblage of delicacies fit for the modest, and
wondrous delicate !

May 3. — I saw in the street three dogs, of the bull-
dog race, dragging up a hill at a good pace what I
am sure two men would not have strength to drag.
I saw also a goat fastened to a child's car. I went
all over the town for a caleche — bought one for
75 louis. In the evening, having procured redingotes
(which I did not use), we mounted a coach and drove
to . Returned home, ate, and slept.

May 4. — Having risen, foolishly paid 40 naps, to

62 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

the coachmaker. My Lord and servant stepped into
the caleche. I and a servant got on horseback, and
went to Waterloo. We soon entered Soignies, which
on both sides formed a beautiful wood (not forest, for
it was not wild on either side) for several miles. The
avenue it formed varied in length : sometimes the end
was formed by a turn of the road, sometimes by the
mere perspective effect of narrowing. The trees are
all young — none of above thirty years' growth. We
then reached Waterloo, where were the head-quarters
of Napoleon. An officious host pressed us to order
dinner. We ran from his pressing, and advancing
came to St. Jean, where the boys continued the offer-
ings we first had at Waterloo of buttons, books, etc.
This was the village which gave the French name to
the battle, I believe, as it was the spot which Napo-
leon tried to gain. The view of the plain, as we
advanced to the right, struck us as fields formed
almost with the hopes that spirit and war would make
their havoc here. Gentle risings, sufficient to give
advantage to the attacked — few hedges — few trees.
There was no sign of desolation to attract the passer-
by ; if it were not for the importunity of boys, and
the glitter of buttons in their hands, there would be
no sign of war. The peasant whistled as blithely,
the green of Nature was as deep, and the trees waved
their branches as softly, as before the battle. The

WATERLOO 63

houses were repaired. Only a few spots with white
plaster between the bricks pointed out the cannon's
ruin ; and in ruins there was only Hougoumont, which
was attacked so bravely and defended so easily — at
least so I should imagine from the few killed in the
garden and the appearance of the whole, while so
many French lay dead in the field. In the garden
were only 25 English killed, while in the field 15CX);
and on the other side 600 French, not counting the
wounded, were slain. Indeed, the gallantry, the
resolution and courage, which the French displayed
in attacking this place, guarded from the heights by
our cannon, and by our soldiers through the loop-
holes, would alone ennoble the cause in which they
fought. Before arriving at Hougoumont, the spots
where Hill, Picton, and the Scotch Greys did their
several deeds, were pointed out to us. The spot
which bore the dreadful charge of cavalry is only
marked by a hedge. The cuirassiers advancing, the
Scots divided — showed a masked battery, which fired
grape into the adverse party's ranks — then it was the
Scots attacked. I do not now so much wonder at
their victory. The cuirasses which we saw were almost
all marked with bullets, lance- and sabre-cuts. Buona-
parte and the French, our guide said, much admired
the good discipline and undaunted courage of the
short-kilted Scot. Going forward, the spot at which

64 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

the Prussians, the lucky gainers of the battle, emerged,
was pointed out to us — and, a little farther on, we
were shown the spot where Colonel Howard, my
friend's cousin, was buried before being carried to
England. Three trees, of which one is cut down,
mark the spot, now ploughed over. At Hougoumont
we saw the untouched chapel where our wounded
lay, and where the fire consumed the toes of a
crucifix. We there inscribed our names amongst
cits and lords. We found here a gardener who
pointed out the garden — the gate where the French
were all burnt — the gap in the hedge where the
French attempted, after the loss of 1500 men, to
storm the place — the field, quarter of an acre, in
which were heaps of Gallic corpses. The gardener
and the dog, which we saw, had been detained at
Hougoumont by General Maitland in case of a
retreat. The peasants declare that from 4 to 5
the affair was very, very doubtful, and that at the last
charge of the Imperial Guards Napoleon was certain
of being in Brussels in quatre heures, Wellington,
after the defeat of the Prussians etc., on the 17th
went to Waterloo, and determined where he would
place each corps. This was a great advantage : but,
in spite of the excellence of his position, he would
certainly have been defeated had it not been for the
fortunate advance of the Prussians. From Hougou-

WATERLOO 65

mont we went to the red-tiled house which is the

rebuilding of the house where was Buonaparte's last

station and head-quarters. It was from this spot that

he viewed the arrival of the Prussians, under the idea

of their being the corps of Grouchy. It was here he

felt first the certainty of defeat, just after he had led

the old Imperial Guard, in the certainty of victory, to

his last attack. La Belle Alliance next appeared

along the road, here where Wellington and Blucher

met. The name is derived from a marriage in the

time of peace : it is now applicable to a war-meeting.

Thence we returned to St. Jean, after going again to

Hougoumont. There we were shown cuirasses, helms,

buttons, swords, eagles, and regiment-books. We

bought the helms, cuirasses, swords, etc., of an officer

and soldier of cuirassiers, besides eagles, cockades,

etc. Beggars, the result of English profusion. A

dinner, measured by some hungry John Bull's hungry

stomach. We rode off the field, my companion

singing a Turkish song — myself silent, full gallop

cantering over the field, the finest one imaginable

for a battle. The guide told us that the account

Buonaparte's guide gave of him after the battle was

that he only asked the road to Paris, not saying

anything else.

At Hougoumont various spots were pointed out :
amongst the rest the one where Maitland stood
5

66 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

watching a telegraph on the neighbouring rise, which
told him what was going on on both sides.

We rode home together through Soignies forest
— black. The twilight made the whole length of the
road more pleasing. On reaching home, we found
the coach was jogged ; so much so that it would not
allow us to put confidence in it, etc. At last we gave
it into Mr. Gordon's hands. My friend has written
twenty-six stanzas (?) to-day — some on Waterloo.

[There are a few points in this narrative of May 4
which call for a little comment.

1. As to " the spot where Colonel Howard, my

friend's cousin, was buried before being carried to

England." Few passages in the 3rd canto of Childe

Harold, which in its opening deals with Byron's

experiences in these days, are better known than the

stanzas (29 to 31) where he celebrates the death of

" young gallant Howard." Stanza 30 is the one most

germane to our immediate purpose —

"There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee,
And mine were nothing, had I such to give.
But, when I stood beneath the fresh green tree
Which living waves where thou didst cease to live,
And saw around me the wide field revive
With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring
Come forth her work of gladness to contrive,
With all her reckless birds upon the wing,
I tum'd from all she brought to those she could not bring."

2. The statement that "the coach was jogged"

BRUSSELS 67

refers to that caleche which had been just bought in
Brussels for the servants — not to the elaborate travel-
ling-carriage. Some trouble ensued over the caliche.
The coachmaker who had sold it tried to make Lord
Byron pay up the balance of the price. Not carrying
his point, he got a warrant-officer to seize a different
vehicle, a chaise, belonging to the poet. The latter,
so far as appears, took no further steps.

3. To write twenty-six stanzas in one day is no
small feat ; especially if these are the nine-line stanzas
of Childe Harold, and if the substantial work of the
day consisted in riding from Brussels to Waterloo
and back, and deliberately inspecting the field of
battle. The entry, as written by Charlotte Polidori,
stands thus — " 26 St.," which I apprehend can only
mean "stanzas." If one were to suppose that the
stanzas thus written on May 4 were the first twenty-
six stanzas of Childe Harold, canto 3 (but this of
course is not a necessary inference), Byron now got
up to the stanza which begins

"And wild and high the 'Camerons' gathering' rose."]

I made up my accounts, and was not a little startled
by a deficit of 10 napoleons, which I at last found
was a mere miscalculation. Rode about thirty miles
in all.

Forgot to say I saw Sir Nath[aniel] Wraxall at

68 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Dover, who, having introduced himself to Lord Byron
as a friend defamille, began talking, knocking his feet
in rattattat, still all the while oppressed by feeling
very awkward.

[I do not find in Byron's correspondence any refer-
ence to this interview, on April 25 or 26, with Sir
Nathaniel Wraxall. But, in his letter of April 25 to
his half-sister, he mentions that he met on the 24th
with Colonel Wildman, an old school-fellow, and later
on the purchaser of Newstead Abbey, who gave him
some details concerning the death of Colonel Howard
at Waterloo.]

At Brussels, the people were in a great stew, the
night of the battle of Waterloo — their servants and
others waking them every minute to tell them the
French were at the gates. Some Germans went there
with mighty great courage, in flight. Lord W[elling-
ton?] sent to a colonel to enquire whether he was
going to fly from or to the battle, giving him his
choice to act in either way. On hearing this, the said
colonel boldly faced about, and trotted to Brussels
with his troop. A supernumerary aide-de-camp, the
brother of N., with two others, was riding between
the ranks while the French were firing ; when, ours
crying out " They aim at you," all three were struck
in the jaw, much in the same place, dead. After the
battle, a friend asking what was become of N., the

CHATEAU DU LAC 69

Serjeant pointed to his feet, saying " There," which
was fact. Dacosta, the guide, says that Buonaparte
was cool and collected till the Prussians arrived ; that
then he said to Bertrand, " That appears to be the
Prussian eagle " ; and, upon Bertrand's assenting, his
face became momentarily pale. He says that, when
he led up the Imperial Guard, on arriving at the red-
tiled house, he went behind a hillock, so as not to be
seen, and so gave them the slip. Wellington acted
the soldier when he should have acted the general,
and the light-limbed dancer when he should have
been the soldier. I cannot, after viewing the ground,
and bearing in mind the men's superior courage, give
Wellington the palm of generalship that has been
snatched for him by so many of his admirers.
Napoleon only took one glass of wine from the
beginning of the battle to the end of his flight.

May 5. — Got up at ten from fatigue. Whilst at
breakfast, there came a Mr. Pryse Gordon for L[ord]
B[yron]. I entertained him. He has been to Italy,
and travelled a great deal — a good-natured gentle-
man. Took him to see the carriage : there he intro-
duced me to his son by means of a trumpet. After
his departure we set off for the Chateau du Lac,
where we found the hind front much finer than the
other for want of the startling (?) dome and low-
windows. It has all its master-apartments on the

70 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

ground-floor: they are extremely well laid out both
with regard to comfort and magnificence — they were
furnished by Nap[oleon]. We saw the bed where
Josephine, Marie Louise, and the Queen of Holland,
have been treading fast on one another's heels. The
hall for concerts divides the Emperor's from the
Empress' rooms — it has a rich appearance, and is
Corinthian. The flooring of the Emperor's is all
wood of different colours — checked — having to my eye
a more pleasing appearance than the carpeted ones of
the Empress. I sat down on two chairs on which had
sat he who ruled the world at one time. Some of his
eagles were yet remaining on the chairs. The servant
seemed a little astonished at our bowing before them.
We returned, it raining all the while. After dinner
Mr. G[ordon] came for us to go to coffee. We went,
and were graciously received ; Lord B[yron] as him-
self, I as a tassel to the purse of merit. I there saw
a painting of Rembrandt's wife or mother by himself,
which was full of life, and some verses by Walter
Scott written in the hostess' album, where he says
Waterloo will last longer than Cressy and Agincourt.
How different ! They only agree in one thing — that
they were both in the cause of injustice. The novels of
Casti were presented to me by Mr. Gordon, which I
was rather surprised at. We came over. Scott writes
in M[rs]. G[ordon's] book —

BRUSSELS 71

" For one brief hour of deathless fame " [Scott].
"Oh Walter Scott, for shame, for shame" [Byron].
[The novels of the Abate Casti (who died in 1803)
are notoriously licentious : hence, I suppose, Polidori's
surprise at the presentation of them by Mr. Gordon.
Byron, it is stated by this gentleman, was asked by
Mrs. Gordon on May 5 to write some lines in her
album. He took the volume away with him, and on
the following day brought it back, having inserted in
it the two opening stanzas on Waterloo forming part
of canto 3 of Childe Harold — from

" Stop, for thy tread is on an empire's dust,"
to
"He wears the shattered links of the world's broken chain"]

May 6. — Mr. G[ordon] and son came while at break-
fast ; gave us letters, etc. Saw the little child again ;
B[yron] gave it a doll.

[It may be excusable to suppose that this trifling
incident is not wholly foreign to a stanza, 54, in the
3rd canto of Childe Harold. This stanza comes
immediately after Byron has begun to speak of the
Rhine, and incidentally of the afl"ection which his
half-sister bore him. Then he proceeds —

"And he had learn'd to love — I know not why,
For this in such as him seems strange of mood —
The helpless looks of blooming infancy.
Even in its earliest nurture. What subdued,

72 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

To change like this, a mind so far imbued
With scorn of man, it little boots to know :
But thus it was ; and, though in solitude
Small power the nipp'd affections have to grow,
In him this glow'd when all beside had ceased to glow."]

The carrossier came. Set off at two, passing through
a country increasing in inequalities. We arrived first
at Louvain, where we saw the outside of a beautiful
Town-hall, which is one of the prettiest pieces of
external fretwork I have seen. Thence we went to
Tirlemont, where was a Jubilee. Saints and sinners
under the red canopy (the sky dirty Indian-ink one)
were alike in the streets. Every street had stuck in
it, at a few paces from the house-walls, fir-branches
1 6 or 17 feet high, distant from one another 5 or 6
feet. Thence to St. Trond, where we ate — and slept,
I suppose. The country is highly cultivated, and
the trees older. The avenues have a more majestic
appearance from the long swells of ground and the
straight roads, but there is more squalid misery than
I have seen anywhere. The houses are many of them
mud, and the only clean part about them is the white-
wash on the external walls. Dunghills before some
must be trodden on before entering the houses. The
towns also fall off greatly in neat and comfortable
looks. The walls round them look ruined and deso-
late, and give a great idea of insecurity. We put the
servants on board-wages.

BATTICE 73

May 7.— Set off from St. Trond at 11. The
country is highly cultivated ; continual hill and dale ;
lower orders miserable in perfection ; houses built of
mud, the upper storeys of which are only built of
beams, the mud having fallen off. Bridges thrown
over the dirt they were too idle to remove. Dung-
hills at their doors, and ditches with black fetid water
before their first step. Liege has a pretty neigh-
bourhood, but the town itself is filthy and disagree-
able. They visited our passports here at three
different places. The hill above the town is enor-
mously steep ; and from some way beyond it has a
beautiful view of Liege with its towers and domes —
of the country with its many cots and villas — and of
the Meuse. The road now lies through a scene
where cottages are spread like trees, and hedges
like furrows of corn, the fields are so minutely
divided. A little farther still we had a most splen-
did view through many miles. From a valley we
could see everything clearly, crowded in a blue tint,
and in a river through it we could see the shadows
of the trees. The cottages are improving, and the
roads becoming the worst ever seen ; paved still, but
so horridly hilled and vallied that the rolling of the
carriage is like the rolling of a ship.

We came at last to Battice ; but before entering
we passed by a village where beggar little cherubs

74 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

came to the carriage-side, and running cried out,
" Donnez-nous quelque chose. Monsieur le chef de
bataillon " ; another, " Monsieur le general." And a
third little urchin, who gesticulated as well as cried,
perceiving the others had exhausted the army, cried,
" Un sou, Messieurs les rois des Hanov6riens ! " We
arrived at Battice, where beggars, beggars. There
we found horses just come in.

After debate (wherein I was for Aix-la-Chapelle,
L[ord] B[yron] for stopping) we set off; and such
a jolting, roUing, knocking, and half-a-dozen etc., as
our carriage went through, I never saw, which put
L[ord] B[yron] to accusing me of bad advice ; clear-
ing however as the road mended. The rain fell into
a pond, to be illuminated by sunshine before we
reached Aix-la-Chapelle at half-past twelve.

May 8. — Got up late. Went to see the Cathedral :
full of people, lower ranks, hearing mass. Miserable
painting, architecture, etc. Saw also a church wherein
was no particular picture or anything. At Liege the
revolutionists had destroyed the fine Cathedral.

A German boy who led me about Aix-la-Chapelle,
on my asking him in broken German about the
baths, led me to a very different place. I was
astonished to find myself in certain company. The
baths are hot sulphuretted - hydrogen - impregnated
water. The sulphur-beds are only shown to dukes

ST. JULIERS 75

and kings : so a kingdom is good for something.
I saw the baths themselves : like others, not very
clean-looking.

We left Aix-la-Chapelle at twelve, going through
a fine country, with no hedges but fine woods in the
distance. We arrived at St. Juliers, strongly forti-
fied, where they took our names at entering and at
exiting. It is a neat town, and was besieged last
year. We were at the post taken by a man for
Frenchmen, and he told us we had been driven from
Russia by a band of the Emperor. He seemed to
be very fond of them, and gave as a reason that he
had been employed by them for many years. And,
I forgetfully saying, " What ! were they here ? " —
"Yes, and farther." I answered, "Jusqu'a Moscou."
" Oui, et presque plus loin." That " presque " means
much. The French were not generally liked, I be-
lieve. The lower orders perhaps liked them, but the
middle, I doubt. But I cannot say ; I may perhaps
be influenced by the opinion of a beautiful face of
this town, who, on my asking her whether the dames
fiaimaient pas beaucoup les Frangais^ answered, " Oui^
les dames publiquesr

We find it a great inconvenience that the Poste is
a separate concern, and generally pretty distant from
the inn. The women are many of them very beauti-
ful, and many of them, as well as the men, have fine

76 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

dark eyes and hair. The men wear ear-rings, and
curl their hair ; which, if I remember rightly, was the
custom in the time of Tacitus. Many of the women
wear their hair combed quite back, and upon it a
little square piece of linen. The French were par-
ticularly polite during the siege.

We entered the dominions of the King of Prussia
a little beyond Battice. It causes a strange sensation
to an Englishman to pass into one state from another
without crossing any visible line. Indeed, we should
not have perceived that we had, if we had not been
stopped by a Belgian guard who asked us if we had
anything to declare. The difference is, however, very
striking. The men, the women, everything, improve
— except the cottages. The people look cleaner,
though everything else is dirty ; contrary to the
Belgians, they seem to collect their cleanliness upon
themselves, instead of throwing it upon their cots,
tins, trees, and shrubs.

We arrived at Cologne after much bad, sandy,
heavy road, at ii. The pavement begins to be
interrupted after Aix, but ends almost entirely after
St. Juliers. Cologne is upon a flat on the Rhine.
We were groaning at having no sight of far-famed
Cologne, when we came suddenly under its battle-
ments and towers. We passed through its fortifica-
tions without question. After having found the gates

COLOGNE 77

shut, and feed the porter, we found inns full, and
at last got into the H6tel de Prague.

May 9. — Got up very bad.^ Sat down to breakfast.
Just done, we heard some singing. Enquiry told us,
buyable. Got them up. A harp played by a dark-
haired German, pretty, and two fiddlers. She played
and sang The Troubadour, which brought back a
chain of Scotch recollections, and a German song;
then a beautiful march, in which the music died away
and then suddenly revived. After a waltz we dis-
missed them. We both mounted a voiture, and drove
through the town to the Cathedral. Great part
pulled down by the revolutionists, and the roof of
the nave obliged to be restored with plain board —
a staring monument over Gallic ruin. There is fine
stained glass, and the effect of its being very high
anH variegated in the choir is beautiful. We saw
a fine painting here by Kalf : vide Taschbuch. The
tomb of the three kings said to be worth three
millions of francs, and an immensely rich treasury
wherein was a sacrament worth one million of francs.
In falling down a step I broke a glass, for which they
at first would not take anything — which at last cost
me three francs. Kept countenance amazingly well.

Went to see St. Ursula's Church, where we were

^ Such is the word written by Charlotte Polidori. I fancy it
ought to be " late."

78 THE DIARY OF POLIDORl

shown virgins' skulls of ninety years old, male and
female, all jumbled into a mass of ii,cxx) virgins'
bones arranged all in order— some gilt, etc. A whole
room bedecked with them. All round, indeed, what-
ever we saw were relics, skulls ; some in the heads of
silver-faced busts, some arranged in little cells with
velvet cases, wherein was worked the name of each.
Paintings of St. Ursula, etc. Asked for a piece out
of the masses : only got a smile, and a point of a
finger to an interdiction in Latin, which I did not
read.

We went to see a picture of Rubens, The Nailing
of St. Peter to a Cross ; the best design, though not
very good, I yet have seen of his. A German artist
copying it spoke English to us.

Returned home. Sent my name to Professor Wall-
raf : got admission. Found a venerable old man who
has spent his life in making a collection of paintings
and other objects of vertu belonging to his country,
Cologne, which he intends leaving to his native
town.

[This is no doubt the Wallraf who was joint founder
of the celebrated Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne.
The statement which ensues as to an early oil-painter
named Kaft is noticeable ; whether correct I am un-
able to say. The Wallraf-Richartz Museum does not
contain any painting by Tintoretto to which the name

COLOGNE 79

Campavella could apply: there is a fine picture by
him of Ovid and Corinna.l

Many pictures were extremely good, especially
painting of individuals. Kaft was a native of this
town, who painted in oil before oil-painting was
known. Saw some Poussins, Claude Lorraines. Some
moderate. A Tintoretto of Campavella beautiful :
colouring and drawing strong and expressive. A
Rembrandt and a Teniers, etc. A master of Rubens.
A copy in colours from the drawing of Raphael by
one of his disciples. Cologne has stamped more
coins than some empires, and has coined twenty-six
kinds of gold. He had made drawings of them, but
the revolution stopped it. The revolutionary Gauls,
he said with a tear in his eye, had destroyed many
very valuable relics of Cologne ; and, pointing to a
leaf of a missal with another tear, he said : " Many
like this once adorned our churches : this is all." He
had the original manuscript of Albert le Grand,
History of Animals ; Titian's four designs of the
Caesars at Polenham, with his own handwriting ; the
Albert Durer's sketch of Christ's head which belonged
to Charles 1 1 ; and a painting of Albert Durer's
Master.^ He wishes for a copy of any of Caxton's
printing in England.

^ Only an initial is written, "M" : but I suppose "Master"—
i.e. Michael Wohlgemuth — is meant.

8o THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Went to buy some books. Found Miss Helmhoft,
a fine woman. Had a long confab. Bought more
books than I wanted. Heard her spout German
poetry that I did not understand ; and laughed at
the oddity of her gesticulation, which she took for
laughter at the wit of a poet who was describing
the want of a shirt — and was highly pleased.

The French destroyed convents, and made of them
public places for walking.

Have been taken for servants, Frenchmen, mer-
chants — never hardly for English. Saw the Rhine
last night — fine mass of water, wide as the Thames
some way below Blackwall ; but no tide, and very
deep. Town dirty, very decayed, badly paved, worse
lighted, and few marks of splendour and comfort.

May 10. — We have seen crucifixes for these four
days at every turn, some made of wood, some of
stone, etc. Set off, after having defeated the im-
position of a postman, to Bonn ; the scenery not any-
thing particular till we see the Seven Hills, a large
amphitheatre on the right, glimpses on the left of the
Rhine, and the Seven Hills. Bonn at last appeared,
with its steeples, and on the neighbouring hills castles
and cots, towers, and (not) towns.^

1 It seems rather odd that Polidori should make this jotting,
" and (not) towns." Perhaps he aimed to controvert the phrase,
"scattered cities crowning these," in Byron's poem quoted
further on.

THE RHINE 8i

I saw yesterday a picture of Rembrandt's with
three lights in it very well managed, at Wallrafs.

Saw R. Simmons' writing in the police-book at
Bonn, and wrote to Soane.

[This was John, the son of Sir John Soane, founder
of the Soane Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields.]

The innkeeper makes you put your name — whence
— whither — profession and age — every night. Rogues
all of them, charging much.

May II. — We saw the first vines a little before
entering Cologne some days ago. We left Bonn at
eleven, the town having nothing in particular. The
Seven Hills were the first that struck our sight on
one of the highest pinnacles in Drachenfels, now a
mere ruin, formerly a castle of which many a tale is
told. There was by the roadside a monument raised
upon the spot where one noble brother killed another.
Crucifixes all the way. We had the river on one
side, whence rose hills (not mountains) cultivated
halfway for vines — and the rest, nuts, shrubs, oak, etc.
Towers on pinnacles, in ruin ; villages (with each its
spire) built of mud.

Cultivation in a high degree ; no hedges, ground
minutely divided into beds rather than fields ; women
working in the fields ; ox and horse ploughing ; oxen
draw by their heads alone. Peasantry happy-looking
and content. Two points particularly struck us —

82 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

the Drachenfels, and the view at a distance before

coming to Videnhar when the distant hills were

black with the rain. But the whole way it is one of

the finest scenes, I imagine, in the world. The large

river with its massy swells and varied towered banks.

We changed horses at Bemagne, and passed over a

road first cut by Aurelius, Theodoric, and Buonaparte.

B[uonaparte]'s name is everywhere. Who did this ?

N[apoleon] B[uonaparte]. — Who that? — He. There

is an inscription to record this. Andernach — a fine

entrance from Bemagne, with its massy towers and

square-spired church. From Andernach we passed

on. Saw on the other side Neuwied, a town owing

its existence to the mere toleration of religion. It

is the finest and [most] flourishing we have seen since

Ghent and Antwerp. We saw the tomb of Hoche at

a distance ; went to it. There was inscribed " The

army of the Sambre and the Moselle to its general-in-

chief Hoche." The reliefs are torn off, the marble

slabs broken, and it is falling. But —

" Glory of the fallen brave
Shall men remember though forgot their grave,"

and the enemies may launch malicious darts against
it. After Andernach the Rhine loses much. The
valley is wider, and the beautiful, after the almost
sublime, palls, and man is fastidious.

[The celebrated lyric by Byron introduced into

COBLENTZ 83

Childe Harold^ an address to his half-sister, is stated
farther on to have been written on this very day. I
cite the first stanza —

"The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine ;
And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine.
And scattered cities crowning these,
Whose far white walls along them shine,
Have strew'd a scene which I should see
With double joy wert thou with me."]

About a mile from Coblentz we saw Marceau's tomb
— too dark. Crossed the bridge over the Moselle,
entered Coblentz ; asked of military, no pass ; went to
inns, rascals. Went to the Trois Suisses — well served ;
fine view of Ehrenbreitstein fortress in sight. When
French besieged it, Marceau was here at this inn,
and the cannon-ball pierced it several times. — There
were 84 French officers here, when they would not
believe the Cossacks would pass ; they had to fly as
quick as horses could convey them, for the C[ossacks],
getting into boats, made their horses swim across.
C[ossack]s rascals — ate and drank and never paid.
The general of them mean into the bargain ; for he
sent the waiter in search of a louis he had never
dropped, and went off. — A flying bridge in face
of me.

84 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

[Marceau died in 1796 of a wound received near
Altenkirchen, at the age of only twenty-seven. High
honours were paid to his remains both by his own
army and by the Austrians whom he had been com-
bating. Polidori passes rapidly from the affair of
Marceau to that of eighty-four French officers and
a body of Cossacks : but it is clear that these two
matters have no real connexion : the latter must
relate to 18 15 or 18 14. Byron devotes to Marceau
two stanzas of Childe Harold —

" By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground,
There is a small and simple pyramid
Crowning the summit of the verdant mound.
Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid,
Our enemy's : but let not that forbid
Honour to Marceau ; o'er whose early tomb
Tears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid,
Lamenting and yet envying such a doom.
Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume.

" Brief, brave, and glorious, was his young career," etc.

General Hoche, although a separate monument to him
was observed by Byron and Polidori, was in fact
buried in the same tomb with Marceau. He died at
Wetzlar in 1797, aged twenty-nine. It may be
noticed that Byron (line 4) writes *' heroes'," plural,
followed by " enemy's," singular. " Heroes' " must be
intended for both Marceau and Hoche, and I suspect
that " enemy's " is a misprint for " enemies'."]

EHRENBREITSTEIN 85

May 12. — Got up. Looked at the fine view, and
went to the bath, which was at a maltster's — 30
sous. Thence entered a Catholic church — organ —
children singing, which had a fine effect. A copy of
Rubens — lineal. Breakfasted.

Mounted a caleche, and went to Marceau's monu-
ment. The tomb of heroes made into a certain place
very much expressed the flickering flame of fame.
Thence to the Chartreuse : deserted, ruined, window-
less, roofless, and tenantless — with another in sight in
the same state. Plenty of reliefs on the roadside
belonging to the Road to Calvary, an oratory on
the hillside, where were many peasants bowing in
reverence. Thence to the flying bridge managed
by boats fastened in the stream with a rope, and
by the rudder.

Saw a motley group of peasants with their head-
dresses of gold and crimson or green with the steel
pin. Cocked hat, blue coat and stockinged heroes
with a fork. Ofiicers, artillery-men, etc. ; crosses given
apparently with as profuse a hand to the soldiers as
to the roadside.

Went to Ehrenbreitstein. Everything broken by
gunpowder; immense masses of solid stone and
mortar thrown fifty yards from their original situation ;
ruined walls, gateways, and halls — nothing perfect.
Splendid views thence — Coblentz, Rhine, Moselle

86 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

with its bridge, mountains, cultivation, vines, wilder-
ness, everything below my feet. Mounted again.
Passed the Rhine in a boat (rowed), looking very
like the Otaheitan canoes. Into the carriage — set
off. Scenes increasing in sublimity. The road raised
from the side of the river without parapet : two
precipices coming to the road headlong. Indeed the
river reaches foot to foot — splendid, splendid, splendid.
Saw the fort belonging once to Muhrfrey, where he
raised customs, and resisted in consequence sixty
cities. Arrived at St. Goar. At the first post saw
the people in church ; went to hear them sing —
fine.

May 13. — Left St. Goar. Found scenery sublime
to Bingen. Men with cocked hats and great buckles
hacking at the vines. The scenery after Bingen
gains in beauty what it loses in sublimity. Immense
plain to the mounts, with the Rhine in medio,
covered with trees, woods, and forests. Fine road to
Mayence made by Nap[oleon] ; his name has been
erased from the inscription on the column com-
memorative of the work. Insolence of power !

Mayence a fine town, with a cathedral raised above
it of red sandstone. Bavarians, Austrians, and Prus-
sians, all in the town — belonging to all. The best
town we have seen since Ghent.

[Mayence was at this date, locally, in the Grand

MAYENCE 87

Duchy of Hesse : but as a fortress it appertained to
the German Confederation, and was garrisoned by
Austrians, Prussians, and Hessians (hardly perhaps
Bavarians)].

One of our postillions blew a horn. Saw yesterday
a beautiful appearance — two rainbows, one on the
top of trees where the colours of the foliage pierced
the rainbow-hues.

Arrived at Mayence at 6J. Saw along the Rhine
many fine old castles. This below is what L[ord]
B[yron] wrote to Mrs. L[eigh] some days ago:
written May 11 on Rhine-banks. See Childe
Haroldy from " The Castled Crag of Drachenfels " to
" Still sweeten more these Banks of Rhine." ^

May 14. — From Mayence, where I saw the spot
where they said lately stood the house where printing
was invented ; it had been pulled down by the French.
The gallery I could not see, because the keeper had
taken it into his head to make a promenade. Saw
the cathedral, pierced at the roof by bombs in the
last siege the town underwent. The reliefs — some
of which were in a good style — many decapitated.
There was a German marshal who was represented
as gravely putting forth his powdered head from

1 These are the precise words as they stand in Charlotte
Polidori's transcript. It is to be presumed that Dr. Polidori
wrote them some while after May 13, i8i6.

88 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

under a tombstone he has just lifted up — ^with an
inscription saying " I am here."

From Mayence we went to Mannheim through a
fine country. Crossed the Rhine on a bridge of
boats. Taken very ill with a fever at Mannheim —
could not write my Journal.

May 15. — Being a little recovered, set off. Fine
alleys of Lombardy-poplars and horse-chestnuts —
neat villages. Entered Carlsruhe through a grove of
Scotch firs and other trees that had a fine effect.
Saw the Palace.

Entered the inn, and was very ill. Took ipecac,
and op. gr. 15. Headache, vertigo, tendency to faint-
ing, etc. Magnesia and lemon acid — a little better,
no effect.

Went a drive about the town. Saw the neatest
town we have yet met with : the only objection is the
houses stuccoed white — bad for the eyes. Saw the
outside of the Palace, and went into the garden laid
out in the English manner.

Went home : dreadful headaches : ate some stewed
apples ; took some more magn[esia] and acid ; had no
effect ; lay down ; got up after two hours. Was just
going out when L[ord] B[yron] came to take from
my hand a plated candlestick, to give me a brass one.
Got on a few steps; fainted. My fall brought the
servants to me. Took 4 pills ; going out again, when

CARLSRUHE 89

L[ord] B[yron] made the servant put down the
plated candlestick, to take up a brass one ; went
to bed.

[This, as Polidori evidently thought, was an odd
incident, not easily accounted for. One cannot
suppose that Byron simply aimed at humiliating or
mortifying his physician. There must have been
a candle in each candlestick ; and it is conceivable
that the candle in the brass one was the longer, and
therefore the more suitable for an invalid who might
have needed it throughout the night.]

Medicine had violent effect : better on the whole,
though weak.

Just as we were going out I met Sir C. Hunter at
my chamber-door, who told me he had heard so bad
an account of my positively dying that he came to
enquire how I found myself. I asked him in. He
took care to tell us he was a great friend of the
Grand Duke, who had sent his groom of the stole
(he called it stool) in search of lodgings for the
worthy Mayor ;^ gave us a long sermon about
rheumatism, routes, etc. ; left us. In the evening
he sent in the Guide du Voyageur en les pays de
r Europe J begging in return some of L[ord] B[yron's]
poems.

1 I don't understand " Mayor " in this context : should it be
"Mylor"?

90 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Went out. Saw a church. Columns like firs —
Corinthian, golden capitals : loaded everywhere with
gilt, perhaps tawdry, but fine-tawdry. The environs
are beautiful. Drove a great deal about : fine trees
and fine cultivation.

May 1 8. — From Carlsruhe to Offenberg; much
better. Slept halfway : blinds down the other, so
nothing to mention except fine trees, fine cocked
hats, fine women, and yellow-coated postillions.

May 19. — Set off from Offenberg; saw some scenes
that pleased me much ; hills and clouds upon them ;
woods with mists. Passed through Freiburg, where we
saw the steeple pervious to the top with trellis-work
showing the light, which had to my eyes a beautiful
appearance.

I think Charles, when he said, " The German for his
horse," remembered the G[erman] postillions ; for they
talk to theirs, and the horses on their part listen and
seem to understand. The greater part of to-day I
have found the ladies in a strange costume of short
wide red petticoats with many folds, and a hat of
straw as wide as a wheel. Arrived at Krolzingen to
sleep. Left Krolzingen : got to a hill. Fine view
thence : the Alps, the Rhine, the Jura mountains,
and a fine plain before us — fine country. Crossed
the Rhine, and were in Switzerland. The town upon
unequal ground — some parts very high, and some

JURA MOUNTAINS 91

low ; the greater part very narrow streets. After tea
went to take a walk : went upon the Rhine bridge —
upon a hill in the town [Bale presumably].

May 21. — Went to see a panorama of Thun, the
first Swiss one : crowded foolishly with people, and
too small. Saw a gallery that the artist had formed.
A fine Raphael, not his ; a good Rembrandt, the first
I saw historical ; a Circumcision ; a head of the
caricaturist David ; two heads of Divinity ; a Christ
and Virgin — mere pieces of flesh and drapery.
Went to a marchand d'estampes. Saw there NelsorCs
Deaths Chatham's ditto, and other pictures of England.
The Dance of Death has been destroyed : but it was
not Holbein's, but his restorer's. The collection is
dispersed, that once was here, of his paintings.

Agreed with a voiturier to take our carriages to
Geneva in five days. Set off. Country increases
from hills to mountains with great beauty. Passed

through Lipstadt and came to . Went before

supper to climb a hill where we found a goatherd
who could not understand the French that asked for
milk till it had the commentary, " We will pay for it."
The scene was very fine : to the right, beautiful ; to
the left, it had a tendency to sublimity ; on one side,
hills covered to the top with trees ; on the other,
mountains with bald pates. Came down. Found
the servants playing at bowls. They were obliged to

92 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

run the bowls along a narrow board to the men.
Supper : read Arabian Nights ; went to bed.

May 22. — Left at 9 ; passed the Jura moun-
tains, where we saw some fine castellated scenery,
and women ornamented strangely — amazingly short
petticoats, not below the knee, with black crape
rays round their heads that make them look
very spidery. Soleure is a neat town with stone
fortifications, and a clean church with fountains
before it. The houses in this neighbourhood have
a pleasing strange appearance on account of the
roofs, which slant out on every side a great way.
Immense number of Scotch firs — roads fine. Voi-
turiers slow, and have eight francs of drink-money a
day, being two ; which being too much according
to the Guide du Voyageur en Europe^ where it is
said \\ fr., we showed it to our courier, who was

in a passion. Came to , where we slept.

May 23. — Left : got a sight of some fine

Alpine snow-capped mountains. Came to Berne ;
delightfully situated ; beautiful streets with arcades
all their length. Dined there. Saw a splendidly
beautiful view coming down a hill, with hills covered
with fir, ash, beech, and all the catalogue of trees ;
Morat at the bottom, and the Jura mounts behind,
with snowy hair and cloudy night-caps. Arrived
at Morat ; neat with arcades. Stopped at the Crown

AVENCHES 93

inn. All the way had debates whether clouds were
mountains, or mountains clouds.

May 24. — The innkeeper at Morat, being a little
tipsy, and thinking every Englishman (being a
philosophe) must be a philosophe like himself,
favoured us with some of his infidel notions while
serving us at supper. Near Morat was fought the
battle wherein the Burgundians were so completely
thrashed. Their bones, of which we took pieces,
are now very few ; once they formed a mighty
heap in the chapel, but both were destroyed by
the Burgundian division when in Switzerland, and
a tree of liberty was planted over it, which yet
flourishes in all its verdure — the liberty has flown
from the planters' grasp. Saw Aventicum ; there
remains sufficient of the walls to trace the boundaries
of the ancient town ; but of all the buildings, both
for Gods and men, nothing but a column remains,
and that the only remnant for more than a hundred
years. There are mosaic pavements, and even the
streets may be perceived in a dry summer by the
grass being thinner. The mosaic in a barn, probably
once of a temple, was pretty perfect till the Gallic
cavalry came and turned it into a stable. It is
formed of little pieces of black, white, and red bricks ;
little now remains. There was also a copper vessel
in the middle ; that too has disappeared. The town

94 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

is shamefully negligent of the antiquities of their
fathers, for there is another more beautiful and per-
fect mosaic pavement discovered, but which they have
allowed the proprietor to cover again with mould
rather than buy it. We found in a barn heads,
plinths, capitals, and shafts, heaped promiscuously.
The Corinthian-column capital is deeply, sharply, and
beautifully cut. A head of Apollo in all the rude-
ness of first art — a capital of a strange mixed order.
There is the Amphitheatre, hollow yet pretty perfect,
but no stonework visible ; overgrown with trees ;
the size, my companion told me, was larger than
common. In the town there were some beautiful
fragments of ornament-sculpture incorporated in the
walls ; all marble. In the walls of the church we
sought in vain for the inscription that Mathison
mentions to Julia Alpinula.

[Both to Morat and to Aventicum (Avenches)
Byron devotes some stanzas in Childe Harold, 63 to
67 y and notes to correspond. Morat he terms " the
proud, the patriot field." He speaks of the hoard
of bones, and says : " I ventured to bring away as
much as may have made a quarter of a hero," for
" careful preservation." His reference to Aventicum
and the inscription to Julia Alpinula reads rather
curiously in the light of Polidori's avowal that
" we sought in vain for the inscription." Byron's

AVENCHES 95

readers must always, I apprehend, have inferred the
contrary.

"By a lone wall a lonelier column rears
A grey and grief-worn aspect of old days.
'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,
And looks as with the wild bewilder'd gaze
Of one to stone converted by amaze,
Yet still with consciousness : and there it stands,
Making a marvel that it not decays,
When the coeval pride of human hands,

Levell'd Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands.

" And there — oh sweet and sacred be the name ! —
Julia, the daughter, the devoted, gave
Her youth to Heaven : her heart, beneath a claim
Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.
Justice is sworn 'gainst tears ; and hers would crave
The life she lived in ; but the judge was just, —
And then she died on him she could not save.
Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,
And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust.

^ Byron's note runs thus : " Julia Alpinula, a young
Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain endeavour
to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by
Aulus Caecina. Her epitaph was discovered many
years ago. It is thus : * Julia Alpinula hie jaceo.
Infelicis patris infelix proles. Deae Aventiae Sacerdos.
Exorare patris necem non potui : Male mori in fatis
illi erat. Vixi annos XXIII.' I know of no human
composition so affecting as this, nor a history of
greater interest. These are the names and actions,"
etc.]

96 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

I copied the one below on account of its medical
tendency. The letters in this as well as in all the
other inscriptions are formed like our Roman print,
not in the least imperfect : " Nvminib. Avg. et Genio
Col. I. El. Apollini Sagr. 9. Postum Hermes lib.
Medicis et Professorib, D.S.D."

From Aventicum or Avenches we went to Payerne.
We have seen in many places boys leading goats just
in the antique style. Thence we went to Moudon
— dirty town. Stopped for refreshments. One fine
view we have had all the way, but nothing equal to
the view descending to Morat.

Darkness came on. We saw the Castle wherein

defended himself against the French who

besieged it for a month : looks so weak, it seems a
wonder. The Swiss castles are not nearly so in-
teresting as the Rhine ones. They are very conical-
roofed and no battlements. We saw the lake, but
for a long time doubted whether it was a cloud
below, a mist before, or water beneath us. Entered
Lausanne.

May 25. — Left Lausanne, after having looked at a
bookseller's, who showed me a fine collection of
bad books for four louis. Enquired for Dewar :
name not known. We went along the lake, that a
little disappointed me, as it does not seem so broad
as it really is, and the mountains near it, though

SECHERON 97

covered with snow, have not a great appearance on
account of the height [of the] lake itself. We saw
Mont Blanc in the distance ; ethereal in appearance,
mingling with the clouds ; it is more than 60 miles
from where we saw it. It is a classic ground we go
over. Buonaparte, Joseph, Bonnet, Necker, Stael,
Voltaire, Rousseau, all have their villas (except
Rousseau). Genthoud, Ferney, Coppet, are close
to the road.

[Perhaps some readers may need to be reminded
who Bonnet was. He was a great physicist, both
practical and speculative, Charles Bonnet, author of a
Traits d'Insectologie, a Traite de Vusage des Feuilles,
Contemplations de la Nature^ Palingenesie Philosophiquey
and other works. Born in Geneva in 1720, he died
in 1793.]

^We arrived at S^cheron — where L[ord B[yron],
having put his age down as 100, received a letter
half-an-hour after from I[nn] K[eeper?] — a thing
that seems worthy of a novel. It begins again to
be the land of the vine. Women, who till the Pays
de Vaud were ugly, improving greatly.

May 26. — After breakfast, and having made up the
accounts to to-day, and having heard that the voi-
turiers made a claim of drink-money all the way
back, we ordered a caleche ; but, happening to go
into the garden, we saw a boat, into which entering,

98 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

we pushed out upon the Leman Lake. After rowing
some time, happening to come to the ferry, we found
the waiter with a direful look to tell us that it was
pris pour un monsieur Anglais^ who happened to be

} We got another, and went out to bathe,

I rode first with L[ord] B[yron] upon the field of
Waterloo ; walked first to see Churchill's tomb ;
bathed and rowed first on the Leman Lake. — It did
us much good. Dined ; entered the caleche ; drove
through Geneva, where I saw an effect of building that
pleased me : it was porticoes from the very roof of
the high houses to the bottom.

Went to the house beyond Cologny that belonged
to Diodati. They ask five-and-twenty louis for it a
month. Narrow, not true. The view from his house
is very fine ; beautiful lake ; at the bottom of the
crescent is Geneva. Returned. Pictet called, but
L[ord] B[yron] said " not at home."

[There were two Genevan Pictets at this date, both
public men of some mark. One was Jean Marc Jules
Pictet de Sergy, 1768 to 1828 ; the other, the Chevalier
Marc Auguste Pictet, 1752 to 1825. As Polidori
speaks farther on of Pictet as being aged about forty-
six, the former would appear to be meant. He had

^ No name is given : should it be Shelley ? Another English-
man who was in this locality towards the same date was Robert
Southey.

SECHERON 99

been in Napoleon's legislative chamber from i8cx) to
1 815, and was afterwards a member of the representa-
tive council of Geneva. — The Villa Diodati was the
house where Milton, in 1639, had visited Dr. John
Diodati, a Genevese Professor of Theology. Polidori's
compact phrase, " narrow, not true," is by no means
clear ; perhaps he means that some one had warned
him that the Villa Diodati (called also the Villa Belle
Rive) was inconveniently narrow, but, on inspecting
the premises, he found the statement incorrect.]

May 27. — Got up; went about a boat; got one for
3 fr. a day ; rowed to S^cheron. Breakfasted. Got
into a carriage. Went to Banker's, who changed our
money, and afterwards left his card. To Pictet — not
at home. Home, and looked at accounts : bad temper
on my side. Went into the boat, rowed across to Dio-
darti ; cannot have it for three years ; English family.
Crossed again ; I went ; L[ord] B[yron] back. Get-
ting out, L[ord] B[yron] met M[ary] Wollstonecraft
Godwin, her sister, and Percy Shelley. I got into the
boat into the middle of Leman Lake, and there lay
my length, letting the boat go its way.

[Here I find it difficult to understand the phrase —
" Cannot have it (Villa Diodati) for three years —
English family." It must apparently mean either that
an English family were occupying or had bespoken
Villa Diodati, and would remain there for three years

loo THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

to come (which is in conflict with the fact that Byron
soon afterwards became the tenant); or else that
Byron thought of renting it for a term as long as three
years, which was barred by the previous claim of some
English family. On the whole, the latter supposition
seems to me the more feasible ; but one is surprised
to think that Byron had any — even remote — idea of
remaining near Geneva for any such great length of
time. This sets one's mind speculating about Miss
Clairmont, with whom (as is well known) Byron's
amour had begun before he left London, and who had
now just arrived to join him at Secheron ; had he at
this time any notion of settling down with her in the
neighbourhood for three years, more or less ? It is a
curious point to consider for us who know how rapidly
he discarded her, and how harshly he treated her ever
afterwards. Miss Clairmont, we see, was now already
on the spot, along with Percy and Mary Shelley ; in
fact, as we learn from other sources, they had arrived
at Sdcheron, Dejean's Hotel de I'Angleterre, as far
back as May i8, or perhaps May 15 — and Byron now
for the first time encountered the three. It appears
that he must have met Mary Godwin in London,
probably only once — not to speak of Clare. Shelley,
to the best of our information, he had never till now
seen at all. Polidori here terms Clare Clairmont the
" sister " of " M. WoUstonecraft Godwin " ; and in

S^CHERON loi

the entry for May 29 he even applies the name
Wollstonecraft Godwin to Clare ; and it will be found
as we proceed that for some little while he really
supposed the two ladies to be sisters in the right sense
of the term, both of them bearing the surname of
Godwin. In point of fact, there was no blood-relation-
ship — Mary being the daughter of Mr. and the first
Mrs. Godwin, and Clare the daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Clairmont. It may be as well to add that the letters
addressed by Miss Clairmont to Byron, before they
actually met in London, have now (1904) been
published in The Works of Lord Byron, Letters and
Journals, vol. iii, pp. 429-437 ; and they certainly
exhibit a degree of forwardness and importunity which
accounts in some measure for his eventual antipathy to
her.]

^Found letter from De Roche inviting me to break-
fast to-morrow ; curious with regard to L[ord] B[yron].
Dined ; P[ercy] S[helley], the author of Queen Mab,
came ; bashful, shy, consumptive ; twenty-six ; sepa-
rated from his wife ; keeps the two daughters of God-
win, who practise his theories ; one L[ord] B[yron] s.

[This is a very noticeable jotting. Shelley appears
to have come in alone on this occasion, and we may
infer that some very confidential talk ensued between
him and Byron, in the presence of Polidori. He was
not at this date really twenty-six years of age, but

I02 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

only twenty-three. "Bashful, shy," is an amusingly
simple description of him. As to " consumptive," we
know that Shelley left England under the impression
that consumption had him in its grip, but this hardly
appears to have been truly the case. Polidori, as a
medical man, might have been expected to express
some doubt on the subject, unless the poet's outward
appearance looked consumptive. Next we hear that
Shelley "keeps the two daughters of Godwin, who
practise his theories" — i.e. set the marriage-laws at
defiance, or act upon the principle of free love. One
might suppose, from this phrase, that Polidori believed
Shelley to be the accepted lover of Miss Clairmont as
well as of Mary Godwin ; but the addition of those
very significant words — "One, Lord Byron's" — tells
in the opposite direction. These words can only
mean (what was the fact) that one of these ladies, viz.
Miss Clairmont, was Lord Byron's mistress. There-
fore Polidori, in saying that Shelley " kept the two
daughters of Godwin," may presumably have meant
that he housed and maintained Clare, while he was
the quasiAwxsh^-^di of Mary. Whether Polidori now
for the first time learned, from the conversation of
Byron and Shelley, what was the relation subsisting
between Clare and Byron, or whether Byron had at
some earlier date imparted the facts to him, is a
question which must remain unsolved. The latter

SECHERON 103

appears to me extremely probable ; for Byron had
certainly arranged to meet Clare near Geneva, and he
may very likely have given the requisite notice before-
hand to his travelling physician and daily associate.
My aunt Charlotte Polidori was not an adept in
Shelleian detail : if she had been, I fear that these
sentences would have shocked her sense of propriety,
and they would have been left uncopied. They form
the only passage in her transcript which bears in any
way upon the amour between Lord Byron and Miss
Clairmont ; to the best of my recollection and belief
there was not in the original Diary any other passage
pointing in the same direction. — I may observe here
that there is nothing in Polidori's Journal to show
that the Shelley party were staying in the same
Secheron hotel with Lord Byron. Professor Dowden
says that they were — I suppose with some sufficient
authority ; and I think other biographers in general
have assumed the same.]

Into the caleche ; horloger s at Geneva ; L[ord]
B[yron] paid 15 nap. towards a watch; I, 13:
repeater and minute-hand ; foolish watch.

[This means (as one of Polidori's letters shows)
that Byron made him a present of £1$ towards
the price of the watch.]

Went to see the house of Madame Necker, 100
a half-year ; came home, etc.

I04 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

May 28. — Went to Geneva, to breakfast with
Dr. De Roche ; acute, sensible, a listener to himself;
good clear head. Told me that armies on their
march induce a fever (by their accumulation of
animal dirt, irregular regimen) of the most malig-
nant typhoid kind ; it is epidemic. There was a
whole feverish line from Moscow to Metz, and it
spread at Geneva the only almost epidemic typhus
for many years. He is occupied in the erection of
Lancaster schools, which he says succeed well. He
is a Louis Bourbonist. He told me my fever was
not an uncommon one among travellers. He came
home with me, and we had a chat with L[ord]
B[yron] ; chiefly politics, where of course we differed.
He had a system well worked out, but I hope only
hypothetical, about liberty of the French being
Machiavellianly not desirable by Europe. He pointed
out Dumont in the court, the redacteur of Bentham.

Found a letter from Necker to the hotel-master,
asking 100 nap. for three months ; and another
from Pictet inviting L[ord] B[yron] and any friend
to go with him at 8 to Madame Einard, a connection
of his. We then, ascending our car, went to see
some other houses, none suiting.

When we returned home, Mr. Percy Shelley came
in to ask us to dinner ; declined ; engaged for to-
morrow. We walked with him, and got into his

SECHERON 105

boat, though the wind raised a little sea upon the lake.
Dined at four. Mr. Hentsch, the banker, came in ;
very polite ; told L[ord] B[yron] that, when he saw
him yesterday, he had not an idea that he was
speaking to one of the most famous lords of England.

Dressed and went to Pictet's : an oldish man, about
forty-six, tall, well-looking, speaks English well. His
daughter showed us a picture, by a young female
artist, of Madame Lavalliere in the chapel ; well
executed in pencil — good lights and a lusciously
grieving expression.

Went to Madame Einard. Introduced to a room
where about 8 (afterwards 20), 2 ladies (i more).
L[ord] B[yron]'s name was alone mentioned ; mine,
like a star in the halo of the moon, invisible. L[ord]
B[yron] not speaking French, M. Einard spoke bad
Italian. A Signor Rossi came in, who had joined
Murat at Bologna. Manly in thought ; admired
Dante as a poet more than Ariosto, and a discussion
about manliness in a language. Told me Geneva
women amazingly chaste even in thoughts. Saw
the Lavalliere artist. A bonny, rosy, seventy-yeared
man, called Bonstetten, the beloved of Gray and the
correspondent of Mathison.

[I find "40" in the MS.: apparently it ought to
be "70," for Bonstetten was born in 1745. He lived
on till 1832. Charles Victor de Bonstetten was a

io6 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Bernese nobleman who had gone through various
vicissitudes of opinion and adventure, travelling in
England and elsewhere. To Englishmen (as indi-
cated in Polidori's remark) he is best known as a
friend of the poet Thomas Gray, whom he met in
1769. He said: "Jamais je n'ai vu personne qui
donnat autant que Gray I'idee d'un gentleman ac-
compli." Among the chief writings of Bonstetten
are Recherches sur la Nature et les Lois de V Imagina-
tion ; Etudes d'Hommes; L' Homme du Midi et
r Homme du Nord.']

Madame Einard made tea, and left all to take
sugar with the fingers. Madame Einard showed some
historical pieces of her doing in acquerella, really good,
a little too French-gracish. Obliged to leave before
ten for the gates shut. Came home, went to bed.

Was introduced by Shelley to Mary WoUstone-
craft Godwin, called here Mrs. Shelley. Saw picture
by Madame Einard of a cave in the Jura where in
winter there is no ice, in summer plenty. No names
announced, no ceremony — each speaks to whom he
pleases. Saw the bust of Jean Jacques erected upon
the spot where the Geneva magistrates were shot.
L[ord] B[yron] said it was probably built of some
of the stones with which they pelted him.^ The

^ I don't think there was any such stone-pelting in Geneva :
it took place elsewhere in Switzerland.

SECHERON 107

walk is deserted. They are now mending their
roads. Formerly they could not, because the
municipal money always went to the public box.

May 29. — Went with Mr. Hentsch to see some
houses along the valley in which runs the Rhone :
nothing. Dined with Mr. and Mrs. Percy Shelley
and Wollstonecraft Godwin. Hentsch told us that
the English last year exported corn to Italy to a
great amount.

May 30. — Got up late. Went to Mr. and Mrs.
Shelley ; breakfasted with them ; rowed out to see
a house together. S[helley] went from Lucerne with
the two, with merely £26, to England along the
Rhine in bateaux. Gone through much misery,
thinking he was dying ; married a girl for the mere
sake of letting her have the jointure that would
accrue to her ; recovered ; found he could not agree ;
separated ; paid Godwin's debts, and seduced his
daughter ; then wondered that he would not see him.
The sister left the father to go with the other. Got
a child. All clever, and no meretricious appearance.
He is very clever ; the more I read his Queen Mab^
the more beauties I find. Published at fourteen a
novel; got ^^30 for it; by his second work ;^ioo.
Mab not published. — Went in caleche with L[ord]
B[yron] to see a house ; again after dinner to leave
cards ; then on lake with L[ord] B[yron]. I, Mrs

io8 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

S[helley], and Miss G[odwin], on to the lake till
nine. Drank tea, and came away at ii after con-
fabbing. The batelier went to Shelley, and asked
him as a favour not to tell L[ord] B[yron] what he
gave for his boat, as he thought it quite fit that
Milord's payment be double ; we sent Berger to say
we did not wish for the boat.

[The statement that "Shelley went from Lucerne
with the two, with merely £26^ to England, along
the Rhine in bateaux," refers of course to what had
taken place in 18 14, on the occasion of Shelley's
elopement with Mary Godwin, and has no bearing
on the transactions of 18 16; it must be cited by
Polidori as showing how inexpensively three persons
could, if so minded, travel from Switzerland to Eng-
land. The other references to Shelley's domestic
affairs etc. are very curious. Except as to his own
personal admiration for Queen Mab, Polidori is here
evidently putting down (but not in the words of
Shelley himself, who would assuredly not have said
that he had "seduced" Mary Godwin) such details
as the poet imparted to him. They are far from
accurate. To some extent, Polidori may have re-
membered imperfectly what Shelley told him, but
I think the latter must have been responsible for
most of the fables ; and generally it would appear
that Shelley gave free rein to his inclination for

SECHERON 109

romancing or for over-stating matters, possibly per-
ceiving that Polidori was credulous, and capable of
swallowing whatever he was told, the more eccentric
the better. To say that Shelley, before he, at the
age of barely 19, married Harriet Westbrook in
181 1, thought that he was dying, and that his only
practical motive for marrying her was that she might
come in for a jointure after his decease, is no doubt
highly fallacious, and even absurd. We have other
sources of information as to these occurrences, especi-
ally the letters of Shelley addressed at the time to
Jefferson Hogg, and they tell a very different tale.
As to his reason for separating from Harriet, Shelley,
we perceive, simply told Polidori that he " found he
could not agree " with her ; he said nothing as to
his knowing or supposing that she had been unfaith-
ful to him. Again, Shelley was not so boyish as
14 when he published a novel — his first novel, the
egregious Zastrozzi ; the publication took place in
1 8 10, when he was eighteen, or at lowest seventeen.
The statement that he got ;^ioo by "his second
work " is worth considering. If " his second work "
means, as one might naturally suppose in this
connexion, the romance of St. Irvyne^ the sug-
gestion that he got anything at all by it, except a
state of indebtedness, is a novelty. But our mind
recurs to that rumoured and apparently really-

no THE DIARY OF POLIDORl

published though wholly untraced work of his, A
Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things. This
poem was published, we are told, for the benefit of
an Irish agitator or patriot, Peter Finnerty, and it
has been elsewhere averred that the publication pro-
duced a sum of nearly ;^ioo. The mention by
Polidori of ;£"ioo may be surmised to refer to the
same matter, and it tends so far to confirm the idea
that the book really existed, and even secured a
fair measure of success. — Berger (who is named in
connexion with Byron and the hire for the boat)
was, as already noted, the Swiss servant of Byron,
brought from London.]

May 31. — Breakfasted with Shelley; read Italian
with Mrs. S[helley] ; dined ; went into a boat with Mrs.
S[helley], and rowed all night till 9 ; tea'd together ;
chatted, etc.

June I. — Breakfasted with S[helley]; entered a
caleche ; took Necker's house for 100 louis for 8 or
365 days. Saw several houses for Shelley ; one good.
Dined ; went in the boat ; all tea'd together.

[Necker's house, here mentioned, would apparently
be the same as the Villa Diodati, or Villa Belle Rive
— for that is the house which Byron did in fact rent.
" Necker " may be understood as meaning (rather
than the famous Minister of Finance in France) his
widow, since Necker himself had died a dozen years

SECHERON III

before. The sum of loo louis seems to be specified
here as the rent for a year, and the phrase about 8
days must indicate that the house could be tenanted
for that short space of time — or let us say a week — at
a proportionate payment. This rate of rental appears
low, and it differs both from what was said under the
date of May 26, and from what we shall find noted
shortly afterwards, June 6. Thus I feel a little doubt
whether " Necker's house " is not in reality something
quite different from the Villa Diodati. Byron's
proposed tenancy of the former might possibly have
been cancelled.]

Rogers the subject : L[or]d B[yron] thinks good
poet ; malicious. Marquis of Lansdowne being praised
by a whole company as a happy man, having all good,
R[ogers] said, " But how horridly he carves turbot ! "
Ward having reviewed his poems in the Quarterly^
having a bad heart and being accused of learning his
speeches, L[ord] B[yron], upon malignantly hinting
to him [Rogers] how he had been carved, heard him
say : " I stopped his speaking though by my epigram,
which is —

" * Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it ;
He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it.'"

[This must be the Honourable John William Ward,
who was created Earl of Dudley in 1827, and died in
1833. Miss Berry, the ^««j/-adopted daughter of

112 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Horace Walpole, told Madame de Stael in 1813 that
the latter had "undertaken two miracles — to make
Ward poli envers les/emmes et pieux envers Dzeu."'\

On L[ord] B[yron's] writing a poem to his sister
wherein he says, " And when friends e'en paused and
love," etc., Rogers, going to some one, said : " I don't
know what L[ord] B[yron] means by pausing ; I
called upon him every day." He did this regularly,
telling L[ord] B[yron] all the bad news with a malig-
nant grin. When L[ord] B[yron] wrote "Weep,
daughter of a royal line," Rogers came to him one
day, and, taking up the Courier, said : " I am sure
now you're attacked there ; now don't mind them " ;
and began reading, looking every now and then at
L[ord] B[yron] with an anxious searching eye, till he
came to "that little poet and disagreeable person,
Mr. Samuel — '* when he tore the paper, and said :
" Now this must be that fellow Croker," and wished
L[ord] B[yron] to challenge him. He talked of going
to Cumberland with L[ord] B[yron], and, asking him
how he meant to travel, L[ord] B[yron] said "With
four horses." Rogers went to company, and said :
" It is strange to hear a man talking of four horses
who seals his letters with a tallow candle."

Shelley is another instance of wealth inducing
relations to confine for madness, and was only saved
by his physician being honest. He was betrothed

SECHERON 113

from a boy to his cousin, for age ; another came who
had as much as he would have, and she left him
" because he was an atheist." When starving, a friend
to whom he had given ;^2000, though he knew it, would
not come near him. Heard Mrs. Shelley repeat
Coleridge on Pitt, which persuades me he is a poet.

[Here we see that Shelley must have repeated to
Polidori that famous story of his about the attempt
of his father to consign him, when he was an Eton
student, to a madhouse, and about the zealous and
ultimately successful effort of Dr. Lind, the Eton
physicist, to save him from that disastrous fate. Next
comes the statement that Shelley was betrothed from
boyhood to his beautiful cousin Miss Harriet Grove —
the marriage to take effect when he should attain his
majority ; an account which we know to be substanti-
ally true. The conduct of Miss Grove — or perhaps
we should rather say of her parents as dictating her
action — is placed in an unfavourable light ; for it is
plainly suggested that she abandoned Shelley for
another bridegroom on the ground of a more immediate
advantage in worldly position — the allegation of
Percy's atheism being more a pretext than a genuine
motive. The passage about a friend to whom Shelley
had given £2000 must (I suppose beyond a doubt)
refer to Godwin ; but it is evident that Shelley, in

speaking to Polidori, a comparative stranger, and this
8

114 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

in the presence of Mary, had the delicacy to suppress
the name. The charge thus alleged against Godwin
is not, I conceive, accurate, although it approximated
towards accuracy. I am not clear that Shelley, up to
the time when he thus spoke in June 1816, had given
Godwin money amounting to quite so large a total as
;^2000 ; but at any rate he cannot have done so up to
the time when he was himself "starving" — or, in
milder terms, when he was in very great and harass-
ing straits for money and daily subsistence. That
time was late in 18 14, and in the first days of 181 5.
It is true that, even before this date, he had done
something to relieve Godwin ; but it was only, I think,
in April 18 16 that he gave the philosopher a really
very considerable sum — £1000 in a lump. I say all
this for the sake of biographical truth, and not with a
view to vindicating Godwin — whose policy of bleeding
Shelley in purse while he cut him in person has in
some recent years been denounced with increasing
vehemence, and it was indeed wholly indefensible.
But human nature — and especially the human nature
of an abstract speculator like Godwin — is capable of
very odd self-deceptions ; and I dare say Godwin
thought he was equally and strictly right in both his
proceedings — right in getting large sums of money
out of Shelley, for a reforming sage ought to be sub-
sidized by his neophytes — and right in repudiating

SECHERON 115

and abusing Shelley, for the latter had applied
Godwin's own anti-matrimonial theories to that one
instance of practice which the philosopher did not at
all relish. — To proceed to another point The lines
of Coleridge on Pitt which Polidori heard recited by-
Mrs. Shelley are to be sought for in his early poem
entitled Fire^ Famine ^ and Slaughter. In that poem
(need I say it ?) those three Infernal Deities are repre-
sented as meeting in '* a desolated tract in La Vendee " ;
and on mutual enquiry they learn that one and the
same person has sent them thither all three.

"Letters four do form his name" —

the name Pitt. Famine and Slaughter finally agree
that the multitude, exasperated by their sufferings,
shall turn upon Pitt and rend him —

^ " They shall tear him limb from limb ! "

Fire, who has just come from doing Pitt's errands in
Ireland, thinks this ungrateful : she concludes the
poem with the memorable words —

"Ninety months he, by my troth,
Hath richly catered for you both :
And in an hour would you repay
An eight years' work ? — Away, away !
I alone am faithful — /
Cling to him everlastingly?^

The poem would be well worth quoting here in full,
but is somewhat too long for such a purpose,]

ii6 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

A young girl of eighteen, handsome, died within
half-an-hour yesterday : buried to-day. Geneva is
fortified — legumes growing in the fosses. — Went
about linen and plate.

June 2. — Breakfasted with Shelley. Read Tasso
with Mrs. Shelley. Took child for vaccination.

[The child in question must seemingly have been
the beloved infant William Shelley, born in January
of this same year. Polidori does not appear to have
vaccinated the boy with his own hand ; for I find in
a letter of his written to his family towards June 20 :
"Got a gold chain and a seal as a fee from an
Englishman here for having his child inoculated."
As Polidori speaks only of "an Englishman here,"
not naming Shelley, it looks as if he purposely with-
held from his family the knowledge that he had come
into contact with that wicked and dangerous char-
acter. I wish I knew what has become of the
" gold chain and seal," the gift of Shelley : but I
could not on enquiry find that anything whatever
was known about them by my then surviving
relatives. I possess a letter on the subject, November
4, 1890, from my sister Christina.]

Found gates shut because of church-service. Went
in search of Rossi. Saw a village where lads and lasses,
soubrettes and soldiers, were dancing, to a tabor and
drum, waltzes, cotillons, etc. Dr. R[ossi] not at home.

S^CHERON 117

Dined with S[helley] ; went to the lake with them
and L[ord] B[yron]. Saw their house ; fine. Coming
back, the sunset, the mountains on one side, a dark
mass of outline on the other, trees, houses hardly-
visible, just distinguishable ; a white light mist, rest-
ing on the hills around, formed the blue into a
circular dome bespangled with stars only and lighted
by the moon which gilt the lake. The dome of
heaven seemed oval. At 10 landed and drank tea.
Madness, Grattan, Curran, etc., subjects.

[The "house" of Shelley and his party which
is here mentioned is the Campagne Chapuis, or
Campagne Mont Alegre, near Cologny — distant
from the Villa Diodati only about 8 minutes' walk.
Shelley and the two ladies had entered this house
towards the end of May, prior to the actual settle-
ment of Lord Byron in the Villa Diodati. The
Shelleys, as we have more than once heard from
this Diary, kept up the practice of drinking tea — a
beverage always cherished by Percy Bysshe. The
topics of conversation, we observe, were madness —
probably following on from what Shelley had on
the previous day said about his own supposed
madness while at Eton ; also Curran, whom Shelley
had seen a little, but without any sympathy, in
Dublin — and Grattan, who, so far as I am aware
was not personally known to the poet.]

ii8 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

June 3. — Went to Pictet's on English day.

June 4. — Went about Diodati's house. Then to
see Shelley, who, with Mrs. Shelley, came over.
Went in the evening to a musical society of about
ten members at M. Odier's ; who read a very in-
teresting memoir upon the subject of whether a
physician should in any case tell a lover the health
[of the lady of his affections], or anything that,
from being her physician, comes to his knowledge.
Afterwards had tea and politics. Saw there a Dr.
Gardner, whom I carried home in the caleche. Odier
invited me for every Wednesday.

Came home. Went on the lake with Shelley and
Lord Byron, who quarrelled with me.

[This might seem to be the matter to which Professor
Dowden in his Life of Shelley (following Moore's Life
of Byron and some other authorities) thus briefly
refers. "Towards Shelley the Doctor's feeling was
a constantly self-vexing jealousy [I cannot say
that the Diary of Polidori has up to this point
borne the least trace of any such soreness] ; and
on one occasion, suffering from the cruel wrong of
having been a loser in a sailing-match, he went so
far as to send Shelley a challenge, which was received
with a fit of becoming laughter. ' Recollect,' said
Byron, * that, though Shelley has some scruples about
duelling, I have none and shall be at all times ready

SECHERON 119

to take his place.' " Professor Dowden does not define
the date when this squabble occurred ; but the con-
text in which he sets it suggests a date anterior to
June 22, when Byron and Shelley started off on their
week's excursion upon the Lake of Geneva. The
very curt narrative of Polidori does not however in-
dicate any sailing-match, nor any challenge, whether
" sent " or verbally delivered at the moment ; and
perhaps it may be more reasonable to suppose that
this present quarrel with Byron was a different affair
altogether — an instance when Polidori happened to
strike Byron's knee with an oar. I shall recur to
the duelling matter farther on.]

June ^. — At 12 went to Hentsch about Diodati ;
thence to Shelley's. Read Tasso. Home in caleche.
Dined with them in the public room : walked in the
garden. Then dressed, and to Odier's, who talked
with me about somnambulism. Was at last seated,
and conversed with some Genevoises : so so — too
fine. Quantities of English ; speaking amongst
themselves, arms by their sides, mouths open and
eyes glowing ; might as well make a tour of the
Isle of Dogs. Odier gave me yesterday many
articles of Bibliotheque — translated and rediges by
himself, and to-day a manuscript on somnambulism.

[After the word Bibliotheque Charlotte Polidori has
put some other word, evidently intended to imitate

I20 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

the look of the word written by Dr. Polidori : it can-
not be read. The subject of somnambulism was one
which had engaged Polidori's attention at an early-
age : he printed in 1815 a Disputatio Medica Inaugu-
ralis de Oneirodynia, as a thesis for the medical degree
which he then obtained in Edinburgh.]

June 6. — At i up — breakfasted. With Lord Byron
in the caleche to Hentsch, where we got the paper
making us masters of Diodati for six months to
November i for 125 louis.

[See my remarks under June i as to "Necker's
house," and the rent to be paid. Up to November
I would be barely five months, not six.]

Thence to Shelley : back : dinner. To Shelley iti
boat : driven on shore : home. Looked over inventory
and Berger's accounts. Bed.

June 7. — Up at . Pains in my loins and languor

in my bones. Breakfasted — looked over inventory.

Saw L[ord] B[yron] at dinner ; wrote to my father
and Shelley ; went in the boat with L[ord] B[yron] ;
agreed with boatman for English boat. Told us
Napoleon had caused him to get his children. Saw
Shelley over again.

[It seems rather curious that Polidori, living so
near Shelley, should now have had occasion to write
to him ; ought we to infer that the challenge was
now at last sent ? Perhaps so ; and perhaps, when

VILLA DIODATI 121

Polidori " saw Shelley over again,'* the poet laughed
the whole foolish matter off. — The boatman's state-
ment that "Napoleon had caused him to get his
children" means, I suppose, that he wanted to rear
children, to meet Napoleon's conscriptions for
soldiers.]

June 8. — Up at 9 ; went to Geneva on horseback,
and then to Diodati to see Shelley ; back ; dined ;
into the new boat — Shelley's, — and talked, till the
ladies' brains whizzed with giddiness, about idealism.
Back ; rain ; puffs of wind. Mistake.

June 9. — Up by i : breakfasted. Read Lucian.
Dined. Did the same : tea'd. Went to Hentsch :
came home. Looked at the moon, and ordered
packing-up.

June 10. — Up at 9. Got things ready for going to
Diodati ; settled accounts, etc. Left at 3 ; went to
Diodati ; went back to dinner, and then returned.
Shelley etc. came to tea, and we sat talking till 11.
My rooms are so :

Picture-gallery. 1

Bedroom

1

June 1 1. — Wrote home and to Pryse Gordon. Read
Lucian. Went to Shelley's ; dined ; Shelley in the
evening with us.

122 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

June 12. — Rode to town. Subscribed to a circulat-
ing library, and went in the evening to Madame
Odier. Found no one. Miss 0[dier], to make time
pass, played the Ranz des Vaches — plaintive and war-
like. People arrived. Had a confab with Dr. O.
about perpanism,^ etc. Began dancing : waltzes, cotil-
lons, French country-dances and English ones : first
time I shook my feet to French measure. Ladies all
waltzed except the English : they looked on frown-
ing. Introduced to Mrs. Slaney : invited me for next
night. You ask without introduction ; the girls refuse
those they dislike. Till 12. Went and slept at the
Balance.

June 13. — Rode home, and to town again. Went
to Mrs. Slaney : a ball. Danced and played at chess.
Walked home in thunder and lightning: lost my
way. Went back in search of some one — fell upon
the police. Slept at the Balance.

June 14. — Rode home — rode almost all day. Dined
with Rossi, who came to us ; shrewd, quick, manly-
minded fellow ; like him very much. Shelley etc. fell
in in the evening.

June 1 5. — Up late ; began my letters. Went to
Shelley's. After dinner, jumping a wall my foot

^ The word written is perpanism, or possibly perhanism. Is
there any such word, medical or other ? Should it perchance be
Pyrrhonism ?

VILLA DIODATI 123

slipped and I strained my left ankle. Shelley etc.
came in the evening ; talked of my play etc., which
all agreed was worth nothing. Afterwards Shelley
and I had a conversation about principles, — whether
man was to be thought merely an instrument.

[The accident to Polidori's ankle was related thus
by Byron in a letter addressed from Ouchy to John
Murray. " Dr. Polidori is not here, but at Diodati ;
left behind in hospital with a sprained ankle, acquired
in tumbling from a wall — he can't jump." Thomas
Moore, in his Life of Byron^ supplies some details.
" Mrs. Shelley was, after a shower of rain, walking up
the hill to Diodati ; when Byron, who saw her from
his balcony where he was standing with Polidori, said
to the latter: ' Now you who wish to be gallant ought
to jump down this small height, and offer your arm.*
Polidori tried to do so ; but, the ground being wet,
his foot slipped and he sprained his ankle. Byron
helped to carry him in, and, after he was laid on the
sofa, went up-stairs to fetch a pillow for him. * Well,
I did not believe you had so much feeling,' was
Polidori's ungracious remark."

The play written by Polidori, which received so
little commendation, was, I suppose, the Cajetan which
is mentioned at an early point in the Journal. There
was another named Boadicea, in prose ; very poor
stuff, and I suppose written at an early date. A

124 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

different drama named Ximenes was afterwards pub-
lished : certainly its merit — whether as a drama or as
a specimen of poetic writing — is slender. The con-
versation between Shelley and Polidori about " prin-
ciples " and " whether man was to be thought merely
an instrument " appears to have some considerable
analogy with a conversation to which Mary Shelley
and Professor Dowden refer, and which raised in her
mind a train of thought conducing to her invention
of Frankenstein and his Man-monster. Mary, however,
speaks of Byron (not Polidori) as the person who
conversed with Shelley on that occasion. Professor
Dowden, paraphrasing some remarks made by Mary,
says : " One night she sat listening to a conversation
between the two poets at Diodati. What was the
nature, they questioned, of the principle of life ?
Would it ever be discovered, and the power of com-
municating life be acquired ? Perhaps a corpse would
be reanimated ; galvanism had given token of such
things. That night Mary lay sleepless," etc.]

June 1 6. — Laid up. Shelley came, and dined and
slept here, with Mrs. S[helley] and Miss Clare
Clairmont. Wrote another letter.

[This is the first instance in which the name of Miss
Clairmont is given correctly by Polidori ; but it may be
presumed that he had, several days back, found out that
she was not properly to be termed " Miss Godwin."]

VILLA DIODATI 125

June 17. — Went into the town ; dined with Shelley
etc. here. Went after dinner to a ball at Madame
Odier's; where I was introduced to Princess Something
and Countess Potocka, Poles, and had with them
a long confab. Attempted to dance, but felt such
horrid pain was forced to stop. The ghost-stories
are begun by all but me.

[This date serves to rectify a small point in literary
history. We all know that the party at Cologny —
consisting of Byron and Polidori on the one hand,
and of Shelley and Mrs. Shelley and Miss Clairmont
on the other — undertook to write each of them an
independent ghost-story, or story of the supernatural ;
the result being Byron's fragment of The Vampyre^
Polidori's complete story of The Vampyre^ and Mrs.
Shelley's renowned Frankenstein. Shelley and Miss
Clairmont proved defaulters. It used to be said that
Matthew Gregory Lewis, author of The Monk, had
been mixed up in the same project; but this is a
mistake, for Lewis only reached the Villa Diodati
towards the middle of August. Professor Dowden
states as follows : " During a few days of ungenial
weather which confined them to the house [by " them "
Shelley and the two ladies are evidently meant, and
perhaps also Byron and Polidori] some volumes of
ghost -stories, Fantasmagoriana, ou Recueil cT Histoires
d' Apparitions, de Spectres, Revenans, etc. (a collection

126 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

translated into French from the German) fell into
their hands, and its perusal probably excited and
overstrained Shelley's imagination." Professor Dow-
den then proceeds to narrate an incident connected
with Coleridge's Christabel, of which more anon ; and
he says that immediately after that incident Byron
proposed, " We will each write a ghost-story " — a
suggestion to which the others assented. It is only
fair to observe that Professor Dowden's account corre-
sponds with that which Polidori himself supplied in the
proem to his tale of The Vampyre, But Polidori's
Diary proves that this is not absolutely correct.
The ghost-stories (prompted by the Fantasmagoriana^
a poor sort of book) had already been begun by Byron,
Shelley, Mrs. Shelley, and Miss Clairmont, not later
than June 17, whereas the Christaber\nc\6.&vi\. happened
on June 18. Byron's story, as I have already said,
was The Vampyre^ left a fragment ; Shelley's is stated
to have been some tale founded on his own early
experiences — nothing farther is known of it ; Mrs.
Shelley's was eventually Frankenstein^ but, from the
details which have been published as to the first con-
ception of this work, we must assume that what she
had begun by June 17 was something different : of
Miss Clairmont's story no sort of record remains.

The Countess Potocka, whom Polidori m.entlons,
was a lady belonging to the highest Polish nobility.

VILLA DIODATI 127

grand-niece of Stanislaus Augustus Poniatovvski,
who had been King of Poland up to 1798. She
was daughter of Count Tyszkiewicz, and married
Count Potocki, and afterwards Count Wonsowicz.
Born in 1776, she lived on to 1867, when she died
in Paris, a leader of society under the Second Empire.
Thus she was forty years old when Polidori saw
her. She wrote memoirs of her life, going up to
1820 : a rather entertaining book, dealing with many
important transactions, especially of the period of
Napoleon I : she gives one to understand that this
supreme potentate was rather susceptible to her
charms, but a rival compatriot, the Countess Wa-
lewska, was then in the ascendant. I have seen
reproductions from two portraits of the Countess
Potocka, both of them ascribed to Angelica Kauff-
ma"n : one of these shows a strikingly handsome
young woman, with dark eyes of singular brilliancy
and sentiment. Its date cannot be later than 1807,
when the painter died, and may probably be as
early as 1800.]

June 18. — My leg much worse. Shelley and party
here. Mrs. S[helley] called me her brother (younger).
Began my ghost-story^ after tea. Twelve o'clock,

1 The "ghost-story" which Polidori published was The
Vampyre\ see p. 128 as to his having begun in the first in-
stance some different story.

128 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

really began to talk ghostly. L[oid] B[yron] re-
peated some verses of Coleridge's Christabel, of the
witch's breast ; when silence ensued, and Shelley,
suddenly shrieking and putting his hands to his head,
ran out of the room with a candle. Threw water in
his face, and after gave him ether. He was looking
at Mrs. S[helley], and suddenly thought of a woman
he had heard of who had eyes instead of nipples,
which, taking hold of his mind, horrified him. — He
married ; and, a friend of his liking his wife, he tried
all he could to induce her to love him in turn. He is
surrounded by friends who feed upon him, and draw
upon him as their banker. Once, having hired a
house, a man wanted to make him pay more, and
came trying to bully him, and at last challenged him.
Shelley refused, and was knocked down ; coolly said
that would not gain him his object, and was knocked
down again. — Slaney called.

[Some of these statements are passing strange, and
most of them call for a little comment. First we
hear that Mrs. Shelley called Polidori her younger
brother — a designation which may have been endear-
ing but was not accurate ; for, whereas the doctor was
aged 20 at this date, Mrs. Shelley was aged only 18.
Next, Polidori, after tea, began his ghost-story. This,
according to Mrs. Shelley, was a tale about " a skull-
headed lady, who was so punished for peeping through

VILLA DIODATI 129

a keyhole — what to see, I forget; something very
shocking and wrong, of course." So says Mrs.
Shelley : but Polidori's own statement is that the tale
which he at first began was the one published under
the title of Ernestus Berchtold, which contains nothing
about a skull-headed lady : some details are given in
my Introduction. Afterwards he took up the notion
of a vampyre, when relinquished by Byron. The
original story, Ernestus Berchtold, may possibly have
been completed in 18 16 : at any rate it was completed
at some time, and published in 18 19, soon after The
Vampyre. Then comes the incident (first published
in my edition of Shelley's poems in 1870) of Byron
repeating some lines from Christabel, and Shelley,
who mixed them up with some fantastic idea already
present to his mind, decamping with a shriek. The
lines from Christabel are these —

" Then drawing in her breath aloud,
Like one that shuddered, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast :
Her silken robe and inner vest
Dropped to her feet, and full in view
Behold ! her bosom and half her side.
Hideous, deformed, and pale of hue —
A sight to dream of, not to tell !
And she is to sleep by Christabel ! "

From this incident Polidori proceeds to three state-
ments regarding occurrences in Shelley's life ; it
may be presumed that he had heard them from the
9

130 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

poet in the course of this same evening. " A friend
of his Hking his wife, he tried all he could to induce
her to love him in turn." Nothing of this sort appears
in the authenticated facts of Shelley's life. It is
certain that, very soon after he had married Harriet
Westbrook in 1811, hesaw reason for thinking that
his friend Hogg " liked his wife," both of them being
then in York ; but, so far from " trying all he could
to induce her to love him in turn," he at once
took her away from York to Keswick, and he
addressed letters of grave remonstrance and sad
reproach to Hogg, and then for a time broke off
all intercourse with him. The only other matter
one knows of at all relevant to this issue is that
Shelley alleged that afterwards a certain Major Ryan
carried on an intrigue with Harriet. He blamed
and resented her imputed frailty, and put it forward
as a principal motive for his separating from her. It
is certainly possible that, after the separation, he
told Harriet that she might as well " make the best
of a bad job," and adhere to Ryan, since she would
not adhere to her wedded husband : but no indication
of any such advice on his part appears anywhere
else. Be it understood that I do not at all affirm
that this suspicion or statement of Shelley's about
Harriet and Ryan was correct. I doubt it ex-
tremely, though not venturing summarily to reject

VILLA DIODATI 131

it. The next point is that Shelley was " surrounded
by friends who feed upon him, and draw upon him
as their banker." This probably glances at Godwin,
and perhaps also at Charles Clairmont, the brother of
Clare. Thomas Love Peacock may likewise be in
question : not Leigh Hunt, for, though the cap might
have fitted him in and after the year 18 17, it did not
so in the present year 18 16, since Hunt was as yet
all but unknown to our poet. Last comes the
funny statement about a hectoring landlord who
twice knocked down the non-duelling author of
Queen Mab. It is difficult to guess what this allega-
tion may refer to. Shelley had by this time had
several landlords in different parts of the United
Kingdom ; and quite possibly some of them thought
his rent unduly low, or more especially his quarterly
or other instalments irregularly paid, but who can
have been the landlord who took the law so decisively
into his own hands, and found so meekly unresisting
a tenant, I have no idea. There was an odd incident
on January 19, 18 12, when Shelley, then living at
Keswick, was (or was said to have been) struck down
senseless on the threshold of his door — seemingly by
a couple of robbers. On that occasion, however, his
landlord, Mr. Dare, appeared in the character of a
guardian angel : so we must dismiss any notion that
this incident, the one which in some of its features

132 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

seems to come nearest the mark, is that which Shelley
so ingenuously imparted to Polidori.]

June 19. — Leg worse ; began my ghost-story. Mr.
S[helley?] etc. forth here. Bonstetten and Rossi
called. B[onstetten] told me a story of the religious
feuds in Appenzel ; a civil war between Catholics and
Protestants. Battle arranged ; chief advances ; calls
the other. Calls himself and other fools, for battles
will not persuade of his being wrong. Other agreed,
and persuaded them to take the boundary rivulet ;
they did. Bed at 3 as usual.

June 20. — My leg kept me at home. Shelley etc.
here.

Jmie 21. — Same.

June 22. — L[ord] B[yron] and Shelley went to
Vevay ; Mrs. S[helley] and Miss Clare Clairmont
to town. Went to Rossi's — had tired his patience.
Called on Odier ; Miss reading Byron.

[The expedition of Byron and Shelley to Vevay
was that same Lake-voyage which forms so promi-
nent an incident in their Swiss experiences. Their
starting upon this expedition had hitherto been dated
June 23. Professor Dowden has expressed a doubt
whether June 22 would not be the correct date, and
here we find that so it is.]

June 23. — Went to town ; apologized to Rossi.
Called on Dr. Slaney etc. Walked to Mrs. Shelley.

VILLA DIODATI 133

Pictet, Odier, Slaney, dined with me. Went down to
Mrs. S[helley?] for the evening. Odier mentioned
the cases of two gentlemen who, on taking the nitrate
of silver, some time after had a blacker face. Pictet
confirmed it.

June 24. — Up at 12. Dined down with Mrs.
S[helley] and Miss C[lare] C[lairmont].

[The dates hereabouts become somewhat embar-
rassing. For the day which I am calling June 24
Polidori repeats June 23 ; and he continues with the
like sequence of days up to June 29, when, as he
notes, he " found Lord Byron and Shelley returned."
It seems to be an established fact that the day when
Shelley got back to Montalegre was July i : he has
stated so, and a note to the Letters of Lord Byron
states the same. Thus Polidori seems to have dropped
two days. One is accounted for by substituting June
24 for June 23 ; and I shall call the next day June
26, though uncertain as to where the second error
occurs.]

June 26. — Up. Mounted on horseback : went to
town. Saw Mrs. Shelley: dined. To Dr. Rossi's
party of physicians : after at Mrs. S[helley's ?].

June 27. — Up at Mrs. Shelley's : dined. No caleche
arrived : walked to G[eneva]. No horses : ordered
saddle-horse. Walked to Rossi's — gone. Went to
the gate : found him. Obliged to break off the

134 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

appointment. Went to Odier's. Met with Mr. ,

a friend of Lord Byron's father. Invited me to his
house: been a long time on the Continent. Music,
ranz des vaches, beautiful. Rode two hours ; went
to Mrs. S[helley]; Miss C[lairmont] talked of a
soliloquy.

[This last phrase is not clear : does it mean that
Miss Clairmont talked in a soliloquy — talked to
herself, in such a way as to excite observation?]

June 28.— All day at Mrs. S[helley s].

June 29. — Up at i ; studied ; down at Mrs.
S[helley's].

June 30. — Same.

July I. — Went in caleche to town with Mrs.
S[helley] and C[lare] for a ride, and to mass (which
we did not go to, being begun). Dined at i. Went
to town to Rossi. Introduced to Marchese Saporati ;
together to Mr. Saladin of Vaugeron, Countess
Breuss, Calpnafur ; and then to a party of ladies.

[The word which I give as Calpnafur is
dubious in Charlotte Polidori's transcript : it is
evidently one of those words as to which she felt
uncertain, and she wrote it as near to Dr. Polidori's
script as she could manage. The other three names
— Saporati, Saladin, and Breuss — are not elucidated
in any book I have consulted. Perhaps Saporati
ought to be Saporiti — see p. 149. There were two

VILLA DIODATI 135

Saladins of some note in France in the days of the
Revolution and Empire — one of them lived on to 1832 ;
but I can scarcely think that this Saladin in Geneva
was of the same race. He may be the " Syndic
Saladin " mentioned farther on.]

Found Lord Byron and Shelley returned.

July 2. — Rain all day. In the evening to Mrs.
S[helley].

September 5. — Not written my Journal till now
through neglect and dissipation. Had a long explanation
with S[helley] and L[ord] B[yron] about my conduct
to L[ord] B[yron] ; threatened to shoot S[helley] one
day on the water. Horses been a subject of quarrel
twice, Berger having accused me of laming one.

[Before this date, September 5, Shelley, with Mary
and Miss Clairmont, had finally left the neighbour-
hood of Geneva ; they started on August 29 upon
their return journey to England. The statement that
Polidori " threatened to shoot Shelley one day on the
water" brings us back again to that question, of which
I spoke under the date of June 4, about some hare-
brained quarrel with Shelley leading to a challenge
for a duel. The natural inference from the position
which this entry occupies in Polidori's Diary certainly
is that the threat to Shelley occurred at some date
between July 2 and August 28 — not at the earlier
date of June 4 ; and so I presume it more probably

136 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

did. We find also that Polidori's conduct in relation
to Byron was considered not to be correct ; and this
formed the subject of " a long explanation " not only
with Byron himself but likewise with Shelley.]

L[ord] B[yron] went to town in pursuit of thieves
who came to steal the anchors after having stolen my
sail. Was refused permission to go out. I went to
the Syndic Saladin, and told him I begged his pardon
for our servants, who must have said something in-
sulting, or else he could not have refused permission
to leave the port. Thieves attempted to break into
the house.

An apothecary sold some bad magnesia to L[ord]
B[yron]. Found it bad by experiment of sulphuric
acid colouring it red rose-colour. Servants spoke
about it. Appointed Castan to see experiment;
came ; impudent ; refused to go out ; collared him,
sent him out, broke spectacles. Laid himself on a
wall for three hours ; refused to see experiments.
Saw L[ord] B[yron], told him his tale before two
physicians. Brought me to trial before five judges ;
had an advocate to plead. I pleaded for myself;
laughed at the advocate. Lost his cause on the plea
of calumny ; made me pay 12 florins for the broken
spectacles and costs. Magnesia chiefly alumina, as
proved by succenate^ and carbonate of ammonia.
1 Word obscurely written.

COPPET 137

Dined twice at Madame de Stael's ; visited there
also ; met Madame de Broglie and M[onsieur ?] ; Miss
Randall ; two Roccas ; Schlegel ; Monsignor Brema ;
Dumont ; Bonstetten ; Madame Bottini ; Madame
Mong-elas ; young de Stael.

[It will be observed that Dr. Polidori, although he
details these various circumstances likely to create
some soreness between Lord Byron and himself, does
not here state in express terms that the poet had
parted with him. At the end of this entry for
September 5 he does, however, give a few words to
the subject, confirmatory of Lord Byron's ensuing
remarks. Byron, in a good-humoured spirit, gave a
general explanation in a letter addressed to John
Murray on January 24, 1817. He understood that
Polidori was "about to return to England, to go to
the Brazils on a medical speculation with the Danish
Consul " (which, however, he did not actually do) ;
and Byron asked Murray to get the Doctor any
letters of recommendation. Then he adds : " He
understands his profession well, and has no want of
general talent : his faults are the faults of a pardon-
able vanity and youth. His remaining with me was
out of the question. I have enough to do to manage
my own scrapes ; and, as precepts without example
are not the most gracious homilies, I thought it better
to give him his conge : but I know no great harm of

138 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

him, and some good. He is clever and accomplished ;
knows his profession, by all accounts, well ; and is
honourable in his dealings, and not at all malevolent."
In March 1820 Byron made a few other observations
applicable to his intercourse with Polidori : " The
sole companion of my journey was a young physician
who had to make his way in the world, and, having
seen very little of it, was naturally and laudably
desirous of seeing more society than suited my
present habits or my past experience. I therefore
presented him to those gentlemen of Geneva for
whom I had letters of introduction ; and, having thus
seen him in a situation to make his own way, retired
for my own part entirely from society, with the
exception of one English family " — i. e. Shelley and
his two ladies. At times, however, Byron was less
lenient to the Doctor. On June 17, 18 17, he wrote
to Murray : " I never was much more disgusted with
any human production than with the eternal nonsense
and tracasseries and emptiness and ill-humour and
vanity of that young person : but he has some talent,
and is a man of honour, and has dispositions of
amendment in which he has been aided by a little
subsequent experience, and may turn out well."

It may be hardly needful to state that "Madame
de Broglie and Monsieur" {i.e. the Due Victor de
Broglie) were the daughter and son-in-law of Madame

COPPET 139

de Stael : they were now but very recently wedded,
February 20, 18 16. Byron thought the youthful wife
devoted to her husband, and said " Nothing was
more pleasing than to see the development of the
domestic affections in a very young woman." Of the
two Roccas, one is remembered as Madame de Stael's
second husband. He was a very handsome officer
of Swiss origin. They married privately in 181 1,
she being then aged about forty-five, and he twenty-
two. He only survived his wife about six months,
dying in 1818. August Wilhelm von Schlegel was
at this date about forty- nine years old, celebrated as
a translator of Shakespear and Calderon, and as a
scholar of extensive range. He had travelled much
with Madame de Stael, who drew on him for some
of the ideas set forth in her book De VAllemagne,
Monsignor Brema is a good deal mentioned farther
on : he was a son of the Marchese di Brema (or
Breme), who had been a valuable Minister of the
Interior under the Napoleonic regime in Italy.
Dumont, who has been previously named by Polidori
as the translator of Bentham, was also closely
associated with the great Mirabeau.]

At Vaugeron, the Saladins, Auguste Mathould,
Rossi, Jacques Naple [?], Brelaz, Clemann, Countess
Mouskinpouskin, Breuss, Abate Gatelier, Toffettheim
e figlio, Foncet, Saussure, Lord Breadalbane and

140- THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

family, a ball ; Saladin of Maligny, Slaneys, two
balls ; Dr. and Mrs. Freckton White, Galstons (Miss
etc. sisters), a ball ; Lord Bingham, Lord F. Cunning-
ham, Lord Belgray, a ball ; Mr. Tillotson St. Aubyn,
Mrs. Trevanion, Valence Meers, R. Simmons, Lloyd,
Princess Jablonski, Lady Hamilton Dalrymple,
Odiers, Lord Kinnoul, Somers, Lord Glenorchy, Mr.
Evans, Coda (songstress), M. G. Lewis, Mrs. Davies,
Mr. Pictet, Mr. Hobhouse, Dr. Gardner, Caravella,
Shelleys, Sir John St. Aubyn.

[Most of these numerous names must be left to
themselves : several of them are hereafter commented,
often caustically, by Polidori himself Saussure is
not the more celebrated naturalist and traveller,
Horace Benedict, who died in 1799; but is his son,
Nicolas Theodore, who cooperated largely with the
father, and produced an important book of his own,
Recherches sur la Vegetation. Born in 1767, he lived
on to 1845. Mrs. Trevanion may be supposed to
have belonged to the same family as a certain Mr.
Trevanion who figured very discreditably in the
history of that Medora Leigh who was the daughter
of the Honourable Mrs. Leigh (Byron's half sister)
and ostensibly of her husband, but who is now said
to have been in fact the daughter of Byron himself
Lady Hamilton Dalrymple ought seemingly to be
Lady Dalrymple Hamilton : she was a daughter of

GENTHOUD 141

Viscount Duncan, and wife of Sir Hew D. Hamilton.
Somers is mentioned on p. 1 50 : this is probably the
correct spelling, not (as here) Summers. Matthew
Gregory Lewis (whom I had occasion to name before)
was the author of The Monk, which he wrote at the
early age of nineteen, of the musical drama The Castle
Spectre^ and of other works whose celebrity has not
survived into the present day. He was now near the
end of his brief career, for he died in 18 18, aged
forty-two.]

The society I have been in may be divided into
three sets : the canton of Genthoud, Coppet, and
Geneva. The canton is an assemblage of a neigh-
bourhood of about seven or eight families, meeting
alternately on Sundays at each other's houses, and
every Thursday at the Countess Breuss's. The
Countess Breuss lives at Genthoud in a villa she
has bought. She has two husbands, one in Russia,
one at Venice ; she acted plays at the Hermitage
under Catherine. Not being able to get a divorce,
she left Russia, went to Venice for six days, stayed
as many years, married (it is said), bought villas etc.
in the Venetian's name, and separated. Her family
consists of Madame Gatelier, a humble friend, a

great lover of medicaments etc.. Abate , her

Almoner, an excellent Brescian, great lover of re-
ligionists. A mania in the family for building summer-

142 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

houses, porticoes, and baths ; neatly planned ; an island
with a ditch round it ; a Tower of Babel round the
trunk of a chestnut ; a summer-house by the roadside
of a Moorish construction. The Countess is very
good-natured, laughs where others calumniate and
talk scandal with prudish airs, kind to all. The
society is extremely pleasant ; generally dancing or
music. It was the birthday of Charles Saladin, who,
having been four years in Nap[oleon]'s army, knew
nothing of the matter. She asked to have the feting
of him. They acted first a charade on the canton of
Genthoud. She acted with Mr. Massey junior, with
others, and myself as a woman — the words to blind.^
Then came a kind of farce, in which Charles was
dressed as the C. B. [Countess Breuss ?], Gatelier as
the Abb4 and Miss Saladin as Gatelier : each took
one another off. Written by C. B. When at last
another of the society brought a letter announcing it
to be Charles' birthday. Then they, while he was in
his amazement, sang a song to him, presented him
with a bouquet and purse. Then an elegant supper,
and afterwards a ball on the arrival of Madame
Toffettheim with her son. A great party was invited ;
and after tea two plays were acted — Le Pacha de

^ " Blind " appears to be the word written. It seems an odd
expression — meaning, I suppose, "to blind (mislead or puzzle)
the auditors."

GENTHOUD 143

Suresne and Les Ricochets. There was an immense
number of spectators. The actors were, in Le Pacha
de Suresne, Madame Dorsan, la Comtesse Breuss;
Laure, Madlle. Brelaz ; Agla^, Clemann ; Nathalie,
M.; Madlle. Remy, Madame Gatelier ; Perceval, Alexis
Saladin ; Flicflac, Polidori ; Joseph, C. Saladin. —
Les Ricochets — I do not remember the characters.
The actors were Alexis, Charles, Auguste Saladin,
Massey le jeune, La Comtesse Breuss, Madame
Mathilde Saladin. The rehearsals before were
frequent.

I got a discretion from the Countess, which I took
in the shape of a Swiss,^ in consequence of a wager
that I could not go straight home.

La Toffettheim is a nice, unpretending, lady-like
woman, pleasing and affectionate. Her son full of
liberty-ideas. It was here, in consequence of Massey
junior dancing extremely well, that, being defied, I
danced a pantaloon-dance, by which I made enemies ;
for, upon my refusing it at the Saladins*, they thought
it was a personal refusal. Saladins of Vaugeron,
father and mother. Father deaf, good-natured : said
to me upon reading my thesis, " Mais, Monsieur, il
n'y a pas de paradoxe." The mother pretended to
play shy on account of Madame B.

^ This, again, is not clear to me : something in the nature of
a game of forfeits may be indicated.

144 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

[By Madame B. it would appear, from a statement
farther on, that Polidori means Madame Brelaz.]

The daughter — because, the first night I saw her,
knowing her by particular introduction, I stuck to
her — thought me in love, and said so, — fool ! Madame
Mathilde [Saladin] pretended prude in mine and
Madame B.'s case, while she herself has got Mr.
Massey junior dangling, not unheard, after her.
Charles a good boisterous soldier, at Leipzig, Nassau,
and 13 ingwen [?] ^ Waterloo business. Makes up for
wit by noise, for affection by slaps on the back. On
his birthday I addressed him with (after supper) —

"Jeune guerrier dans I'armde du premier des heros,
Dans la cause de la France dedaignant le repos,
Que la chute de vos ans soit tranquille et heureuse,
Comme fut I'aube de vos jours dclatante et glorieuse."

[This little specimen suffices to show that Polidori
had no true idea of French versification : he was
evidently unaware that a final e mute coming before
a consonant counts as a syllable.]

Auguste, a simple neat fool, despising learning
because he is noble and has enough to live upon ;
content to dangle, with a compliment and a sentiment,
after a woman's tail. Alexis, so so, good-naturedly
ignorant husband to Mathilde. Massey senior, active

* So written : should it be " B ingwen " or something of the
kind ?

GENTHOUD 145

pleasant man, excellent fencer and dancer — been
secretary to Bertrand. Massey junior, confident,
impudent, insolent, ignorant puppy. Saladins of
Maligny, neither good nor bad, rich : to gain a little
more, let their villa to Lord Breadalbane, and retired
to a cottage, though both old and only one ugly vain
daughter. Lord Breadalbane, an excellent, good-
sensed though not quick man : answered — when the
Duke of Bedford said to him, " What would you give
to have the Breadalbane estate in Bedfordshire ? " —
"Why, your Grace, I should be sorry if my estate
would go in Bedfordshire." Gave a very good ball
at which I was. His son Lord Glenorchy, good, shy,
not brilliant young man. His lady not spoken to.
His daughter excellent dancer, rather haughty. Mr.
Evans, a good sensible man, biassed in his thoughts
by his cassock. At the society he took up the im-
mortality: Lord Glenorchy gave a positive No.
Saussure, Mrs., a wax talkative figure. Mr., a
would-be scientific gentleman : thought mc a fool
because I danced pantaloon, and himself a wise man
because he knows the names of his father's stones.
Jacquct, Madlle., got half in love with her, — no, her
8000 a year : her face and bad-singing exposures
cured me. Foncet, officer of the Piedmontese troops,
jealous of him.

Brelaz, Portuguese lady, — in love with her ; I think

146 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

fond of me too ; imprudent ; her daughter also against
me on account of it ; shows it too much publicly ;
very jealous ; her daughters, sprightly good-looking
girls. Clemann — got half in love with her ; nice
daughter. The Cavalier pleasing. Had a dispute in
a public ball with her two fools. One of the Saladins,
Auguste, courts her, and she laughs ; she excites love
in every young man's breast. Miss Harriet is rather
too serious for her age, pretty and well-informed in
novels and romances, and rather too sentimental.
Cavalier's Marianne is a fine hoydenish creature :
applies when studying, and romps when playing.

Madame de Stael I have dined with three times ;
she is better, those who know her say, at home than
abroad. She has married poor Rocca. She talks
much ; would not believe me to be a physician ; pre-
sented her my thesis, which she told me she had read
with pleasure. Talked about religion, and puts down
every [?] of Rocca. Ugly ; good eyes. Writing on
the French Revolution ; polite, affable ; lectures, and
tells all to L[ord] B[yron]. Madame de Broglie, her
daughter, a beautiful, dirty-skinned woman ; pleasant,
soft-eyed speaker ; dances well, waltzes. Schlegel, a
presumptuous literato, contradicting d, outrance ; a
believer in magnetism. Rocca, a talkative, good-
natured, beautiful man, with a desire for knowledge ;
the author of Walcheren and Espapie ; excellent at

COPPET 147

natve description. Rocca, the judge, very clever and
quick, rising ; know little of him. Been seven years
in the courtship of Miss Saladin ; she neither refuses
nor accepts him, but keeps him in her train. Miss
Randall, sister to Mrs. Norgate. Monsignor Brema,
friend of Ugo Foscolo, enthusiastic for Italy, encomiast
in all, Grand Almoner of Italy, hater of Austrians.
Dumont, a thick, heavy-thoughted body, editor of
Bentham. Bonstetten, friend of Gray.

The first time L[ord] B[yron] went, there was Mrs.
Hervey there ; talkative, sister and a great friend of
the Noels ; she thought proper to faint out of the
house, though her curiosity brought her back to speak
with him.

Bonstetten told me that, upon his saying to Gray
that he must be happy, he took and read to him the
criticism of Johnson, which happens to have been
written after Gray's death ; he used to go in the
evening to tea, and remain all night reading the
English authors with him. Gray introduced him to
society ;^ and, one of the professors having asked him
if he understood what he said, he replied he thought

^ The word " society " is perfectly clear in Charlotte Polidori's
transcript. From the context, I question whether it ought not
to be "Shakespear." As to "the criticism of Johnson" on Gray
in the Lives of the Poets, many of my readers will recollect that
this criticism is somewhat adverse, Gray being treated as a rather
nebulous writer.

148 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

so, but very diff[idently ? ] — " So you think so only ! "
Gray, hearing this, showed B[onstetten] some pas-
sages to ask him, which B[onstetten] did in a public
company, complimenting him upon [his?] known
knowledge ; when all the company, one after the
other, began contradicting the Professor's opinion.
Then B[onstetten], turning to him, said, " You perhaps
thought you understood Shakespear." Gray told
him that there was none who could perfectly under-
stand him.

Rossi, an Italian of about thirty, pleasant, agree-
able, and good-natured, professor at Bologna, thence
obliged to fly with two others. One of his companions
was beginning his lecture, when the students called
out, " No lecture, but an improvise upon the liberty
of Italy " ; as he v/as an improvisators He objected,
as, on account of Murat's approach, it might be sus-
picious. They insisted, and the professors at hand
said, "No harm if not upon present circumstances."
He did it, and the students issued forth to join Murat ;
they had however made up their minds to do so
before. Rossi joined it more openly and loudly, and
was obliged to fly. He wrote a memoir to defend
himself, in which he said it was only to avoid the
Roman dominion, and give it to the Archduke ; who
told him that he had better write another, as Bologna
was already ceded to Pius. When he was ruined thus

GENTHOUD 149

partially he wrote to the father of his betrothed, to
say that he must not (if he chose) think himself bound
by his promise, as he was not in the same circum-
stances as when the promise was given. The father
did retract. So far a man of honour. Now how to
reconcile his being with Calandion, a magistrate of
G[eneva] violent on the other side ? who says he has
made a good profession to him, and at the same time
professing other opinions to others.

Gave me a letter to Milan, and by him I have been
introduced to Saporiti, a good, enthusiastic, ignorant
Italian. Talked of the English landing 100,000
soldiers here and there, as if they were so many
peas.

Slaneys : the husband jealous of every one — Cam-
bridge degree. When I danced with his wife, he
after, when walking with her, came up and gave an
arm too. The wife beautiful, but very simple.
Galston, Miss, very beautiful.

" Genevan Liberal Society " is a muster of English-
men for debate on speculative questions. Twice
there. Immortality, accomplice's evidence. The
members whom I knew were — Lord Kinnoul, a most
tiresome, long-winded, repeating, thick-headed would-
be orator, Lord Conyngham.

[The MS. gives " Cunningham," which must be a
mistake. The Lord Conyngham of this period began

I50 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

the year 1816 as an Earl, and ended it as a Marquis.
He was born in 1766, and lived on to 1832, and was
husband of a lady, Elizabeth Denison, whose name
figures much in the gossip, not excluding the scandal,
of those years.]

Mr. Somers, good head enough. Valence, whom I
cried to hear ; and, meeting me after at Chamounix,
the first thing he asked me was, " Why did you laugh
at me ? " St. Aubyn, Lloyd, Slaney.

Lloyd, of good Welsh blood, his original name
Ap Griffith, rode out. We went out visiting one
day, and, in returning in his gig, he touched a horse
of a row of carts. The carter struck me upon my
back with his whip ; I jumped down, and six jumped
at me. I fortunately was between a wheel and a
hedge, so that they all could not reach. Lloyd,
seeing this, jumped down also ; then three left me
and went to him, and another untied a piece of his
wagon with which, while I defended myself from
the two (one with a whip), he struck me while
fortunately my arm was striking a blow, so that it
did but just touch my face. He lifted again; I
sprang back, and with all the force of my leap struck
him with my fist in his face. His blow fell to the
ground, and with his hand to his nose he retreated.
They then seized stones to throw, but we closed with
them ; they could not throw above two, when we

SWITZERLAND 151

saw an English carriage we knew coming. We
called, they came, and immediately the boisterous
[fellows?] were calm. Some who tried to divide us
got blows also.

St. Aubyn, an excellent fellow, introduced me to
his father at Genthoud : is a natural son, studying
for the Church. His father is a good polite man,
according to the "go" school.^ Keeps a mistress
now, though sixty-five years : has many children by
different mistresses.

At Dr. Odier's — who is a good old, toothless,
chatty, easy-believing man — there was a society
every Wednesday, where I went sometimes. They
danced, sang, ate cakes, and drank tea ; English
almost entirely, changing every Wednesday. — Went
to a concert of Madam igella Coda — the theatre dirty.

When Mr. Hobhouse and Davies arrived, we went
to Chamounix. The first day through Chesne, Anne-
masse, Vetra, Nangy, Contamine, Bonneville (dinner),
Cluses, Sallenches (slept). Next day by Chede in
two char-d-bancSy with each a guide ; a fine pine-glen
of the Arve, to Chamounix. We went that evening
over the Brisson, and to the source of the Aveyron.
Next day so bad we left, and returned to Sallenches,
taking the fall of Chede in our way ; thence to

1 Seems rather an odd phrase, but I suppose correctly
transcribed.

152 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Diodati. Mr. Scrope Davies played against the
marker at tennis: then went, taking Rushton with
him. [Rushton was one of the servants.]

L[ord] B[yron] determined upon our parting, — not
upon any quarrel, but on account of our not suiting.
Gave me £70 \ 50 for 3 months and 20 for voyage.
Paid away a great deal, and then thought of setting
off: determined for Italy. Madame de Stael gave
me three letters. Madame B[relaz ?] wept, and most
seemed sorry.

[I suppose that most likely the " Madame B." here
is Madame Brelaz, with whom, as stated on p. 145,
Polidori was " in love." Or it might perhaps be the
Comtesse de Breuss.]

The night before I went, at Madame B[reuss i*]'s,
they acted Cest le Mime extremely well ; a Lausanne
girl acting the lady very well. The costumes also
extremely good. Wished nobody good-bye : told
them, though, I was going. Set off with 47 louis,
112 naps.

Le Valais from Schlirer's book. Description du
Dipartement du Simplon, 18 12, lent me by the
Cav[aliere]. See elsewhere.

September 16. — Left Cologny and Lord Byron at
six in the morning. Breakfasted at Doraine, 3
leagues. Dined, Thouson, ditto. Evrein, 2. Slept
St. Gingoux, 4. Passed Meillerie. Saw Lausanne

SWITZERLAND 153

at a distance, right through this part of Sardinian
King's dominions. Read Madame Brelaz's verses.
Wept — not at them, but at the prose.

September 17. — Left St. Gingoux at 6. Walked

to } Took bread and wine. Crossed to Chillon.

Saw Bonivard's prison for six years ; whence a
Frenchman had broken, and, passing through a
window, swam to a boat. Instruments of torture,
— the pulley. Three soldiers there now : the Roman
arms already affixed. Large subterranean passes.
Saw in passing the three treed islands. The Rhone
enters by two mouths, and keeps its waters distinct
for two stones' throw.

From Chillon I went to Montreaux — breakfasted
— leaving Charney on my left. I began to mount
towards the Dent de Jamanu. Before beginning to
mount Jamanu itself, one has a beautiful view, seeing
only part of the lake, bound by Meillerie, Roches,
and the Rhone. Higher up the view is more
extensive, but not so beautiful — nothing being dis-
tinct ; the water looking merely as an inlet of sky,
but one could see the Jura as far as Genthoud.

I entered a chalet, where they expressed great
astonishment at my drinking whey, which they give
to their pigs only. Refused at first money.

^ A name is written here, but so obscurely that I leave it out.
It somewhat resembles " Neravois," or " the ravois."

154 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Descended towards Mont Boyon. What owing to
the fatigue and hardly meeting any one, sick with
grief. At Mont Boyon dined, and, finding they
would not dance, slept immediately after.

September i8. — Up at 4. Drank wine and bread.
At 6 set off. Passed the Chateau d'Ox where there
was a fair. After that, hardly met a soul. Always
on the side of the mountains, each side of a river
or torrent ; with torrent-beds, pine-forests, chalets,
villages without a visible soul — all at work — and ups
and downs : so that this road, if I had not had that
of yesterday, I should have called the worst in the
world. Passed through Chateau d'Ox ; Rougemont,
breakfast ; Zwezermann, dinner ; Gessenay ; Lam-
beck ; Reichenstein ; Weissenbach ; Bottingen, tea
and night. The French language leaves off at
Gessenay (rather, patois), and they begin their
German : found it difficult to go on.

September 19. — Got up at 4 J. Set off from Bottingen.
Went through Obernoyle. Breakfasted at Wyssen-
bach : refused my money. Went to the Doctor,
who charged me a nap. Went through Erlenbach,
Lauterbach, Meiningen, to Thun. Splendid scenery;
especially the first look at the Lake by the river's
mouth, and the pass into a great valley. Took
dinner, and then a warm bath. Arrived at i o'clock.
All the houses are of wood, the foundation only

SWITZERLAND

155

being stone : great cut ornaments between the rows
of windows : the wood, fir. Felt very miserable,
especially these two last days : only met two persons
to whom I could speak — the others all Germans.
At Wyssenbach they all said grace before breakfast,
and then ate out of the same dish ; remarking (as
I understood them) that I, not being a Catholic,
would laugh.

[It was a mistake to suppose that Dr. Polidori was
" not a Catholic." He was brought up as a Catholic,
and never changed his religion, but may (I suppose)
have been something of a sceptic]

September 20. — Got up at 6. Wrote to St. Aubyn,
Brelaz, father, Vacca, and Zio, asking letters ; to my
father, to announce my parting.

[Vacca was a celebrated surgeon at Pisa, of whom
we shall hear farther. Zio is " my uncle " — /. e, Luigi
Polidori, also at Pisa.]

Bought fresh shoes and stockings ; found no book-
seller's shop. The man at the post-office made a
good reflection : that he was astonished so many
came to see what they who were so near never want
to see, and that he supposed that the English also
leave much unseen in their own country.

Thun is a neat well-situated town, not large, with
arcades — as apparently all the Berne towns. Afraid
all day my dog was poisoned ; which grieved me so,

156 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

at seeing it vomit, that I wept. At 2 o'clock went
in search of a boat : none going immediately, I
walked along the left bank of the lake to Unterseen.
The views the most beautiful I ever saw ; through
pines over precipices, torrents, and sleepers [?] ^ and
the best-cultivated fields I ever saw. The lake some-
times some hundred precipitous feet below my feet ; at
other times quite close to its edge ; boats coming from
the fair ; picturesque towered villages ; fine Alps on
the other side, the Jungfrau and others far off. The
bottom of the lake is especially magnificent. Lost
my way, and had two little children as guides back
again. One small cascade of seven or eight fountains.

Arrived at 7 at Unterseen : through Nilterfingen,
Oberhofen, Rottingen, Morlangen, Neuchaus, to
Unterseen. Found two Englishmen at supper : sat
down with them. Very miserable all the morning.

September 21. — Got up at 6, having determined to
go with the two to the Grindenwald in a char-a-banc,
on account of the state of my foot. I went to the
bridge at Interlachen to see the view coming
between two beautiful isolated crags. Going, met
a man, a marechal, who had been to Vienna and
Bohemia en roulant after his apprenticeship, to see
the world — stopping a day at one place, a day at
another. Returned, breakfasted: and then, after
1 Should this be "glaciers"?.

SWITZERLAND 157

growling at the innkeeper's wishing us to take two
horses, we went off through splendid pine-clad craggy
valleys through Zweihitschirne to Lauterbrunner ;
whence to the fall of the Staubach, a bare cataract
of 900 feet high, becoming vapour before it arrives —
appearing much, and ending in a little stream. The
curate of this village receives guests : there were the
Prince Saxe-Gotha and family. We lunched at the
inn, and went back to Lauterbrunner after having
looked at the Jungfrau at a distance.

Went from Zweihitschirne to the Grindenwald
with the Saxe-Gotha before us, through a more
beautiful valley. Saw the glaciers come into it,
with the Eiger, Wetterhorn, and other mountains,
most magnificent. Walking about, found two girls
who gave us cherries and chatted freely. Found
that mules were 18 francs a day. A party came
in in the dark at 8 with guides, hallooing and making
a lively sound. Dined at 7, and talked about mules,
hoping to get return ones etc.

September 22. — Got up. Could not get mules under
18 francs: my foot too bad to walk. Went with
Captain Rice and others back to Interlachen. Got
into a boat rowed by two men and a boy. Went
by Brientz, Calne, to the Griesbach cascade, and
then to Brientz — wilder, but not so beautiful as the
Lake of Thun. The cascade I did not mount to see

158 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

on account of my foot. At Brientz an old woman
would give us her presence and conversation till one
of my companions courted the daughter. Met be-
tween Grindenwald and Interlachen L[ord] B[yron]
and Mr. H[obhouse] : we saluted.

September 23. — Got up at 4. Tired of my company ;
and, finding the expense more than I could afford, I
went to their bedrooms to wish them good-bye. Set
off at 5 J ; and through fine copse- wooded crags,
along the Aar, with cascades on every side, to
Meyringen ; where I breakfasted with two Germans,
an old and a young artist — the old, chatty. Bought
a pole. Went to see the Reichenbach, a fine cascade
indeed. Thence through the beautiful vale of Nach-
im - Grunden, where for a moment I planned a
sovereignty ; but, walking on, my plans faded before
I arrived at Guttannen, where I dined.

Rode all the way to-day — horrible, only passable
for men and mules : it is the way to St. Gothard.
The road is merely huge unequal masses of granite
thrown in a line not the straightest. From Guttannen
the road went through the wildest and most sublime
scenery I ever read of: vegetation less and less, so
that, instead of grass, there was moss ; then nothing.
Instead of trees, shrubs ; then nothing — huge granite
rocks leaving hardly room for the road and river.
The river's bed the most magnificent imaginable, cut

SWITZERLAND 159

deep and narrow into the solid rock, sinuous, and
continually accompanied by cascades, and amazing
bold and high single-arched bridges. Snow covering
in some parts the whole bed of the river, and so thick
and strong that even huge stones have fallen without
injuring its crust. There are only two houses between
Guttannen and the Hospital : one, a chalet wherein
I entered ; the other, a cow-herd's. Arrived at 6
o'clock precisely, having walked in only 9J hours 30
miles at least.

[This is a little indistinct in connexion with what
precedes. I suppose that the phrase "rode all the
way to-day" must be understood as meaning "all
the way up to Guttannen " ; and that, after leaving
Guttannen, there were 30 miles of walking before the
Hospital was reached. Yet this seems an unreason-
ably heavy day's work in travelling. After "only
9^" the initial written is "m": but I presume it
ought to be "h" (hours).]

The Hospital is an old stone ugly building, con-
sonant with the wild scene, where the poor are lodged
for nothing ; others, us, [as ?] an inn.

September 24. — On account of rain did not get up
till 7. Set off across the Grimsel, a dreary mountain
with snow in every hollow — 5000 feet above the
Four-canton Lake. Descended on the other side to
Obergustellen, where I breakfasted at 10. Thence

i6o THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

through Verlican, Guesquerman, Munster, Rexingen,
Biel, Blizzen ; where, out of the dead flat valley, I
began to mount, and the scenery began to increase
in beauty. One bridge especially over the Rhone,
which fell between two clefts' sides, was beautiful.
Sinderwald, Viesch, pine-wood ; sax (?) along the
rocks, and fine path along the mountain. Very fine,
though continued hard rain, which drenched me and
hindered my seeing a great deal. To Morel, where I
went to bed, and ate a kind of dinner in bed at 7 o'clock.

September 25. — Up at 5 ; my foot, from having
been obliged to walk with the shoe down at heel,
very much swelled and too painful to walk. Break-
fast. Two students from Brieg, of the Jesuits'
College, came in, who had during the vacations been
beyond Constance with only two ecus neufs in their
pockets. It costs them ten batsches a year at
College. Impudent one : the other modest-looking,
but, when I gave him six francs because he had no
more money, he asked me for more on other accounts.
The Jesuits been restored two years.

At Brieg ^ I sent for the curate, a good old man
of sixty. We conversed together in Latin for two
hours ; not at all troublesome in enquiries, but kind
in answering them. The Valaisians resisted two

^ This name is illegibly written : I can only suppose that it
must be meant for Brieg.

BRIEG i6i

years against the French in 93. It was the only-
part of the country in which they did so, except
Unterwalden, and then it was only the peasants, and
in every village there was a French party. The
cruelty of the French was dreadful ; they stuck their
prisoners in a variety of ways like sheep. One old
man of eighty, who had never left his house but
whom they found eating, they strangled, and then
put meat and bottles by him as if he had died
apoplectic. They fought very hard and bravely, but
such was the power of numbers united to the force
of treachery that they were obliged to yield. In
18 1 3, after the French had quitted Brieg, they again
attempted to penetrate from Italy by the Simplon ;
when the Brieg, Kelor [?], and other villagers, joined
by only one company of Austrians, surrounded them
in the night, and took them prisoners. In Schwytz [?]
and Unterwalden the division was more strongly
marked. In Unterwalden (where was the scene) the
men [?] divided and fought against each other, some
joining the French from Stanz[?] to Engelberg.
They were for freedom, and fought as the cause
deserved. They killed 5000 French, more than double
their own number ; women fought ; they were in
all 2100 Swiss. One maid in the ranks, when her
comrades were obliged to retreat, seeing a cannon
yet unfired, went with a rope-end and fired it, killing

i62 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

thirty [?] French. She was taken ; a pardon was
offered. She said, " I do not acknowledge any
pardon; my action is not pardonable; a thief [one?]
pardons, not a just man." They killed her with
swords. The hundred men who came from the
higher part of Schwytz, attempting to go to their
relief, were through their own countrymen forced to
cut their way and march by night ; and, when in
retreating they came to the other shore of Lucerne
Lake, they had again to cut through their own
countrymen to arrive at their homes, they refusing
them permission to pass. The Austrians, for the help
the higher Valaisians gave them, from sovereigns
have made them subjects to the lower Valaisians.
The curate came in again, with a description of the
Simplon ; sat an hour and a half, then left the book.
When [he was] not here I have written the part of
my Journal I missed at the time, and the extract
from his book. He came in again about 6 with a
basket of prunes for me, and offered to go with me
half-way, as he had to go to a church on the way.

September 26. — Got up at 5. The curate came,
and, my foot being better, I set off. He showed me
the bridge over the Massa where was a battle, and
the ruins of a tyrant's tower. We came to his church,
where he showed me the miraculous figure that was
found in the Rhone. He told me the lower Valaisians

MOUNT ST. BERNARD 163

were ready to join the French in '13, and that, in
spite of this, they [the Austrians ?] had given them a
majority of voices. Left me in sight of Brieg, telling
me he hoped to see me again in heaven. I walked
on to Brieg ; breakfasted, and then set off along the
Simplon, a magnificent road indeed. It is cut in
many places through the rocks, in others built up
to its side. It has caverns and bridges always wide
enough for four carriages ; it ascends all the way to
the new Hospice, and again descends from it. At its
side are houses of refuge (as they are called) where
many are kept by government, with privilege of
selling food to help the passers-by. There is in each
a room with a bed where one can go in case of rain,
accident, etc. ; and, when the time for avalanches etc.,
these men are obliged to accompany the travellers
from house to house. Just where the rising ends the
new Hospital was to have been erected, and is half
done, but stopped now. A little farther on is the old
one ; whither I went, and got a dinner in the cell of
one of the monks ; bread, wine, cold meat, and nuts.
He seemed very ennuye; his words slowly fell ; said
they were St. Augustines, not St. Bernardites. That
St. Bernard was a mere reformer of the order. They
have been here since 18 10 only, in an old castle for
which they pay ;^20 a year. The Simplon was a
department of France, and rather well off on account

i64 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

of the quantity of work and money, and not having the
droits revenues. The Archduke Regnier was there a
few days ago incog., and they did not recognize him
— which mortified them very much. It is six leagues
hither from Brieg, so that I had walked twenty-six
miles.

I set off at 2 : passed through Sempeln [?], and
through the most magnificent scenery, through the
granite galleries. The Italian part is by far the
most difficult and splendid. The first boy that I
met before coming to Isella, in answer to a question
in German, answered " Non capisco " ; M could have
hugged. I arrived after much difficulty at Isella,
knocked up. I was ruined in my feet, and it was not
till near here that the carriages which parted in the
morning from Brieg overtook me. Went to bed
immediately in a room where the grease might be
scraped from the floor.

September 27. — Did not get up till i on account
of fatigue. Breakfasted most miserably, everything
being bad ; and then set off, but immensely slowly
till a cart overtook me. Entered ; lay upon the logs
of wood and hay, and was driven to Domo d'Ossola.
Is it imagination only that I find the sky finer,
the country where cultivated extremely rich, green-
looking ? The dress of the women picturesque, blue
^ " I don't understand."

ORNAVASCO 165

with red stripes here and there ; the men more acute
and quicker-eyed. Arrived at Domo d'Ossola at 3 ;
got into a clean though poor inn, and dined well.
A gendarme came in to ask how it was that my
passport had not been vised yet ; and then, seeing I
was a physician, requested a cure for his toothache.
It is useless to describe the picturesque : the best
page to turn to for it is the memory. After one of
the most comfortable fireside-evenings I have had
since I left Geneva I went to bed at 7J.

September 28. — Set off at 6 o'clock through vine-
country, with little hills here and there starting out
of the low Alps, highly cultivated, with beautiful
little white villas at their tops and sides. Asked a
woman what was a house whereon was painted
a Democritus, Diogenes, etc. Answered, "E roba
antica " ^ — though evidently modern, but deserted.
Indeed, the whole of the houses seem too large for
the inhabitants — much falling to ruin. From Domo
d'Ossola went to Vella ; to Vagagna, where I break-
fasted and saw the first good-looking Italian girl.
The children are pretty, the women quite otherwise.
There began to suffer from my feet so much as that
to go about six more miles took me five hours. No
car passed me, or anything.

I arrived at last at Ornavasco. Could get no car,
^ " It's an old aflfair."

i66 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

though they kept me half-an-hour in the yard
standing, in hopes of getting one. At last agreed
with a man that he should set off at 4 o'clock
to-morrow to Fariolo for 4 francs. Looked at a
bedroom : shrugged up my shoulders, but forced.
Dinner : no meat, because " meagre." Ate the fruit.
The Italian grapes, nectarines, peaches, and pears, I
got yesterday, excellent. Two bunches of grapes
half-a-franc : two at dinner.

Sunday^ September 29. — Up at 5. Got into the
char, or rather cart. Passed through Gravellino to
Fariolo. Asked 10 francs to take me to Laveno :
offered 4 — accepted. Got into the boat. Rowed
towards Isola Madre ; passed Isola Pescatori ; and
landed on Isola Bella.

Went over the palace. Many of the floors miserable
on account of their being the mere rock. Some good
pictures. A whole set of rooms below in the style
of grottoes, with windows looking on to beautiful
views, close to the lake for // fresco. Looked at the
terrace : not pleasing the style : and, thinking I
should see it all in going round, did not go over
the gardens. Went round the island in the boat ;
magnificently paved, like terrace on terrace.

Thence towards Laveno, intending to go to Lugano
and Como ; but, hearing that I could go all the way
by water to Milan, I preferred this, and accordingly

MILAN 167

turned round towards Belgirato. Breakfasted on
caffe al latte, uve, and fichi} 4J francs. Boatman
proposed my joining a party to Sestri-Calende, which
I did. Arona, with the colossus, on my left, Anghera
on my right ; Monte Rosa ; all the bottom part of
the lake richly magnificent.

[The colossus is the celebrated gigantic statue of
San Carlo Borromeo.]

Arrived at an inn — taken for a servant. After
some time things got round, when in came two
soldiers with swords by their sides, to desire me to
step to the police-inspector. I did, and found he
could not read the writing in my passport. The
boatman came soon after, offering me a plan for
to-morrow for five francs, and showing me twelve
naps, they got for the boat — which cost only seventy
francs. Agreed.

September 30. — Up at 5. Off at 6 in a large barge,
with yesterday's English party and two carriages, by
the Tessino and canal to Milan : at first through a
fine hilly country, and rapidly by the Tessino flood.
After, slower, and through a flat plain with trees and
neat villas and hanging grapes, to Milan. Slept out
of the town by the canal.
October i. — Up at 7.

[Polidori blunderingly calls this " September 31 ":
^ Coffee with milk, grapes, and figs.

i68 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

he also calls the day a Monday, but October i, 1816,
was a Tuesday. For the next following day he
rightly writes "October 2."]

The boatman came as I had desired, to guide
me. Entered Milan by a fine gate with a kind of
triumphal arch. The streets are clean but narrow —
fine houses. There are two strips of pavement for
wheels, and often two for pedestrians. Passed by
Santa Maria — fine, all white marble, with many fine
statues on the outside. Many palaces. A bad taste
shown in plastering the columns and corner-stones
of a lighter colour than the body.

Got a letter from Brelaz ; well written in composition
and in letters, but badly spelled. Got my trunk, after
some difficulty, passed. The diligence-keepers asked
if they could direct me to rooms : showed two where
a man was at that moment going. Got them for 40
lire il mese ; a bedroom and sitting-room, second
storey, Contrado San Spirito. Sent to the custom-
house. Made the men wait — sent them away for two
hours, again away for one. More stoppages, and, in
centimes, 3 francs to pay. They would not at first let
it (the trunk) go because it was the last day of the
month.

[Did they share Polidori's blunder that the day
was September 31 ?]

Went to dine at a restaurateur's: ij-franc dinner.

MILAN 169

Afterwards put my things into a little order, dressed,
and went strolling towards Teatro della Scala.
Entered, two hours before beginning, alone. Im-
mense theatre : six rows of boxes, with, I think,
thirty-six in a row. La Testa di Bronzo^ a ballet,
and a comic ballet : the ballet the most magnificent
thing I ever saw — splendid indeed.

October 2. — Got up at 8. Breakfasted on grapes,
bread and butter, wine, and figs. Wrote to Lord
Byron. Dressed. Went to Marchese Lapone — out
of town ; Monsignor Brema — not at home. Walked
about looking at booksellers' shops. Entered the
Duomo — invisible almost, so black and dark. They
were putting up drapery for Friday, which is the
Emperor's birthday (probably the same as for
Napoleon). Returned home, arranged my papers.
Took a walk on the Corso ; then to the Teatro Re.
The same price for all the places. The piece //
Sogno di Ariosto [Dream of Ariosto], where Fortune,
Merit, Orgoglio, with Mrs. Disinganno,^ were all
personified. The dialogue abounded in truths, es-
pecially regarding women, which they applauded.
The theatre is very small, hke the Haymarket.
Home to bed.

October 3. — Up at 8. Went to a circulating library :
read Denina, Vicende, all the part on Italy and
1 Orgoglio is pride ; disinganno is undeceiving, disillusion.

I70 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

preface. To the Teatro Scelto di Milano. Enquired
about Andricini etc. for my father — not found.

[" Andricini " is clearly written in the transcript
before me. I am not aware that there is any such
Italian author as Andricini, and apprehend that the
name ought to be Andreini. This author wrote, early
in the seventeenth century, a dramatic poem entitled
AdamOy which was indisputably present to Milton's
mind when he was writing Paradise Lost. Dr. Poli-
dori's father, who translated Milton, was probably
interested in this work of Andreini.]

Went to the Teatro Re ; ^ a play of English people
in which they kiss the hand, and make more bows
than were ever made in a century in England. There
were German soldiers in English uniforms present.
Home, to bed.

October 4. — Up at 8 — breakfasted. Went to call
on Monsignore Breme — found him. Received me
with two kisses and great apparent joy. About to
learn English : I promised my help. Walked with
me, and invited me to his box.

[Lord Byron, in two of his letters, October and

November 18 16, remarks regarding Milan: "The

society is very oddly carried on — at the theatre, and

the theatre only, which answers to our opera. People

1 There is a word following " R^," evidently the title of the
play which was acted. It looks something like " Amondre,"
but cannot be read.

MILAN 171

meet there as at a rout, but in very small circles. . . .
They have private boxes, where they play at cards,
or talk, or anything else ; but, except at the cassino,
there are no open houses or balls etc. etc."]

Left him — came home. Read Denina's Ultime
Vicende, a poor book. Went to Guyler. Met Cara-
vella — walked with him. Went to dine : where I met
his brother, who told me the physician at Florence
was dead, and promised to come and take me to the
hospital. Met after dinner Abate Berlezi the Crabule.^
Came home. Read the Calandra of Bibiena, and
Sofonisba of Trissino. Took an ice, and went to
La Scala. Feast of St. Francis, the Emperor's. When
the Dukes went this morning to mass at the Duomo
not a hat moved, not a voice of applause : however,
when Regnier entered, there was a slight clapping
of hands. The theatre was lighted up like an English
one, and was magnificent, but showed what the Italians
allege — that the scene does not improve by it, but the
contrary.

In Brema's loge there were Monti, Brema's brother,
and others. Monti a short man, round face, quick
eye ; pleasant in conversation, not haughty, modest,
unassuming ; seemed to take great pleasure in parts
of the music and in the dancing.

[It will be understood that this is the celebrated

1 The word is more like Crabule than anything else : I don't
understand it,

172 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Vincenzo Monti, the poet who was at one time
acclaimed as the legitimate successor of Dante in
virtue of his poem La Basvigliana^ upon a personage
of the French Revolution. In 1816 Monti was sixty-
two years of age : he died in 1828. Though sufficiently
Italian in his tone of mind and sentiment, he was not
a consistent Italian patriot, but was eminently sus-
ceptible of inflation by a series of conflicting winds —
anti-revolution, revolution, Napoleon ism, and even
Austrianism. Not indeed that he was sordidly self-
interested in his various gyrations. As Dr. Richard
Garnett has said : " He was no interpreter of his age,
but a faithful mirror of its successive phases, and
endowed with the rare gift of sublimity to a degree
scarcely equalled by any contemporary except Goethe,
Byron, and Shelley."]

Brema related that a friend of his, Porro, asked for
a passport to Rome : refused, and asked for docu-
ments to prove his business. Gave what proved he
had business at Maurata and relatives at Rome.
Refused. Went to Swarrow, who told him he could
not give it. Porro said : " Why do the Austrians
think the Italians are always making conspiracies?"
Swarrow said that they did not know, but, now that
they had the upper hand, they cared not ; and at last
that, if Porro would give his word of honour not to
visit any of the foreign embassies, he should have

MILAN 173

a passport. He had it. Porro was not a revolutionist
but had always been against Napoleon, and had
belonged to a legislative body by him dissolved on
account of obstinacy. Brema and others accompanied
me as far as the door, and I went to bed.

[It appears in the sequel that there were two
Austrian governors in Milan at this period — Swarrow
and Bubna — one for civil and the other for military
affairs.]

From that day I neglected my Journal till this day,

December 8. — My residence at Milan lasted till
October 30. During that time I had a most happy
and pleasant life, Monsignor de Breme taking great
friendship for me. My friends and acquaintance
were Breme, Borsieri, Guasco, Cavalier Breme, Beyle,
Negri, Byron, Hobhouse, Finch, Caravellas, Locatelli,
Monti, Monti's son-in-law, Lord Cowper, Lord Jersey,
etc. ; Lloyd, Lee, Wotheron.

[Beyle was the great romance-writer best known
as De Stendhal. In 18 16 he was aged thirty-three,
and had published only one book, entitled Lettres
Rentes de Vienne siir Haydn, suivies d'une Vie de
Mosart, etc. He had seen some service under
Napoleon, in Russia and elsewhere. His passionate
admiration of the now dethroned Emperor induced
him to retire from France towards 18 14, and he
resided in Milan up to 182 1. He died in Paris in

174 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

1842. — Hobhouse had rejoined Byron in mid-
September, and they had continued together since
then. — Colonel Pinch was the person through whom
Shelley, in 1821, heard of the death of John Keats.
— The Lord Cowper living in 18 16 was the fifth Earl,
born in 1778, and was married to a daughter of the
first Viscount Melbourne. — The Earl of Jersey, born
in 1773, was married to a daughter of the Earl of
Westmorland. — Mr. Wotheron is spoken of later
on under the name " Werthern." Neither of these
surnames has a very English aspect, and I cannot
say which is correct.]

De Breme and I became very intimate, and I believe
he is really a good friend. In the morning at 10
o'clock I went to him to help him in English, and
towards the end he corrected my Italian translation
of Count Orlando} We afterwards met at his box
every night in the theatre of La Scala. He gave a
dinner to Lord Byron, at which were a good many
or rather all my acquaintances — Monti, Finch, Hob-
house, two Bremes, Borsieri, Guasco (translator of
Sophocles), Negri (author of Francesca of Rimini^ a
play). The dinner was very elegant, and we were
very merry, talking chiefly of literature, Castlereagh,
Burghersh, etc. We got up immediately after dinner,
and went to coffee ; thence most to the theatre. De

* Presumably some English book, but I know not what.

MILAN 175

Breme was Vicar Almoner under the French Govern-
ment. A priest came to him to ask leave to confess ;
Breme, knowing the subject, refused. The Princess
was put to move Beauharnais, who sent for Breme
and in a very angry mood asked him why he had
refused leave. B[reme] said that, as he was placed
to give leave, he imagined it was that it might not be
granted indiscriminately, that he could not in his
conscience give it, but that he was not the chief,
and the Almoner, being applied to, might grant it.
B[eauharnais] asked why, saying that the Princess
wished it, and it must be done. De B[reme] said he
had undertaken the office under the idea that his
conscience was to be his guide ; if not, the office
should be immediately vacant ; that he put it to
Beauharnais himself whether a man who was burled
in the vilest dissoluteness was a proper person to be
entrusted with the care of young women's minds.
Beauharnais said, " Right, right ; you shall hear no
more of it." This, and another occasion of the same
nature, were the only occasions in which he saw
Beauharnais privately ; he avoided the court, and did
not seek preferment. He twice under that govern-
ment refused a bishopric, and under the new govern-
ment ; giving me as a reason that it went against
his conscience to inculcate what he did not believe,
and to add power to those who gave them, as he

176 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

would be expected to side with them. He is
violently for the independence of Italy. Christianity
he believes not, and gives (I think) a new argument
why we should not be holden to believe it. Saul, who
was contemporary, who beheld the miracles etc., did
not believe till a miracle was operated upon him ;
we at this distance cannot believe with greater facility.
He has published an eulogium of Caluro, Ingiustizia
del Giudizio^ etc,^ poems, etc. Has written several
tragedies ; Ina made me weep like a child. He is
warm in his affections, and has never recovered the
death of one he loved — a young noble lady, of great
accomplishments and beauty. His friendship for me
was warm : it gratifies me more than any attentions,
friendship, or any relation I had before, with my
fellow-companions. I cannot express what I feel for
him. When parting from him, I wept like a child
in his arms. He maintains from principle, not from
belief, all the hardships imposed upon him by his
tonsure. He would have the world to see that his
belief is not swayed by a wish to escape from the
bonds of the clerical state. He is charitable, giving
away great sums of money in charity ; eats only once
a day, and studies all day till the hour of the theatre ;
kind to all who are recommended to him ; sacrificing
whole days to show them what he has seen a
thousand times ; a great admirer of English women ;

MILAN 177

has an excellent library, of which I had the use. A
great friend of comic, good-natured mimicry. Has
an idea of writing Ida, a novel containing a picture
of the most promising movements of the Milan
revolution, and I have promised to translate it. He
has two brothers ; his father lives yet ; his eldest
brother is Ambassador at Munich. The youngest
is Cavalier Breme — been officer in Spain ; extremely
pleasant and affectionate with me. Breme was a
great friend of Caluro's, and to him Caluro dedicated
one of his opuscules.

Borsieri, a man of great mental digestive power
and memory, superficially read ; author of // Giorno,
a work written with great grace and lightness. He
was very intimate with me, Guasco, and Breme.
Guasco, a Piedmontese ; little reading, but great
mental vision and talents. He also was one who
attached himself a good deal to me. De Beyle,
formerly Intendant des Marches (I think) to Buona-
parte, and his secretary when in the country. A fat
lascivious man. A great deal of anecdote about
Buonaparte : calls him an inimitable et bon despote.
He related many anecdotes — I don't remember
them: amongst other things, he said Buonaparte
despised the Italians much.

[This last detail is confirmed in Beyle's Remin-
iscences of Napoleon, published not long ago.]
12

178 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

These four were the usual attendants at Dc
Breme's box.

Monti is a short, roundish, quick-eyed, and rather
rascally-faced man, affable, easily fired ; talks rather
nonsense when off poetry, and even upon that not
good. Great imagination ; very weak. Republican
always in conversation with us; but in the first
month, after having declaimed strongly in B[reme']s
box about liberty and Germans, just as they were
going out he said, " But now let us talk no more of
this, on account of my pension." Under the French
government he gained a great deal by his various
offices ; by this one he has been abridged of half.
He translated the Iliad of Homer without knowing
a word of Greek ; he had it translated by his friends,
word for word written under the Greek. Easily
influenced by the opinions of others ; in fact, a com-
plete weathercock. He married the daughter of
Pickler, the engraver; a fine woman, and they say
an exceedingly good reciter, as he is himself She
has acted in his plays upon the Philodramatic stage.
His daughter is married.

Negri — Marchese Negri ^ — a Genoese, not an im-
provisatore — very chatty ; has at Genoa a most

1 I think the name would correctly be Marchese di Negro :
my father had some correspondence, towards 1850, with the then
Marchese of that family.

MILAN 179

beautiful garden which all the English visit. Related
to me Gianni's beginning. Gianni was an apprentice
to a stay-maker, when one day an Abate, going
into the shop, found him busily engaged in reading.
Looking at the book, he asked him if he understood
it. He said yes, and, on reading, showed it by his
expression. The Abate, who was an improvisatore,
asked him to see him next morning ; when he
improvised before him, and observed that the young
Gianni seemed as if his mind was full and wished
to give forth. He had him sent to school, and intro-
duced him. Gianni in the Revolution, taking the
Liberal side, was obliged to leave Rome, and, going
to Genoa, Negri heard by letter of it, and went to
seek him, inviting him to dine with him. He refused;
and Negri, who had promised his friends that he
would be of the party, at the hour of dinner went
and found him with his nightcap on, deeply reading
his favourite Dante ; and in a manner dragged him
by force to his house, where Gianni pleased much —
and stayed a year at Negri's house, teaching him the
art of improvisation. Gianni's improvisations were
(many) improvised on the spot by an Abate into
Latin verse. — Negri came to Breme's box several
times, and had the effect of making all except
Breme burst with laughter : me he sent to sleep.
Lord Byron came to Milan, and I saw him there

i8o THE DIARY OF POLIDORl

a good deal. He received me kindly, and corrected
the English of my essay in Tlu Pamphleteer} He
visited a good deal Breme's box. Mr. Hobhouse
was with him.

Colonel Finch, an extremely pleasant, good-natured,
well-informed, clever gentleman; spoke Italian ex-
tremely well, and was very well read in Italian
literature. A ward of his gave a masquerade in
London upon her- coming of age. She gave to
each a character in the reign of Queen Elizabeth
to support, without the knowledge of each other,
and received them in a saloon in proper style as
Queen Elizabeth. He mentioned to me that Nelli
had written a Life of Galileo extremely fair, which,
if he had money by him, he would buy that it
might be published, — in Italy they dare not ; and
that Galileo's MSS. were in dispute, so that the
heirs will not part with them ; they contain some
new and some various readings. Finch is a great
admirer of architecture and Italy. — Wotheron, Mr.,
a gentleman most peaceable and quiet I ever saw,
accompanying Finch ; whose only occupation is,
when he arrives at a town or other place, to set
about sketching and then colouring, so that he has
perhaps the most complete collection of sketches

^ This essay was on the Punishment of Death.
2 The word written is " his " ; but the context shows that this
must be a mistake.

MILAN i8i

of his tour possible. He invited me (taking me
for an Italian), in case I went to England, to see
him ; and, hearing I was English, he pressed me
much more. — Locatelli was the physician of the
hospital, a good unimpostoring physician. I saw
under him a case of pemphizus, and had under my
care an hysterical woman.

Jersey, Lady, promised to enquire of her mother.
Lady Westmorland, if she would employ me as
her physician ; but said she thought my having been
with Lord B[yron] a great objection.

[I have an impression, not a secure one, that Dr.
Polidori did act to some extent as Lady Westmor-
land's medical adviser. It would here appear that
her Ladyship was not very partial to Byron ; and
Byron must have repaid her dislike, for I find, in a
letter of his to Murray, November 1817, that Polidori
was in the way of receiving " the patronage of Frederic
North, the most illustrious humbug of his age and
country, and the blessing of Lady Westmorland,
William Ward's mad woman." Joseph Severn the
painter (Keats's friend), who saw a good deal of Lady
Westmorland at one time, terms her " this impulsive,
arrogant, dictatorial, but witty and brilliant woman."]

Lloyd ; — as I was moving in the pit, found him, and
never saw a person so glad in my life. He offered
me half of the money he had at his banker's, as he
thought I must be much embarrassed. Told me

i82 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Brelaz and Bertolini seemed to be together, and that
the man seemed worked off his legs.

My life at Milan was very methodical. I got up,
went to the hospital, breakfasted, came home, studied,
dined, and then at 7 went to the theatre. Between
breakfast and study went to de Breme to help him
in English. It was proposed too, by him, to teach
English, which I had intended to do.

I saw only the dome under which is the chapel of
St. Borromeo — very rich in silver, crystal, and jewels.
The body is vested in pontificals, and quite dry. The
orbits seem only filled with a little heap of black
dirt, and the skull etc. is black. There is here the
gnometer of Cassini. They preserve here a nail of
the cross of Christ. — St. Ambrose, the ancient Cathe-
dral. It was at the gates of this that Theodosius was
refused entrance. — The Brera library; and the Am-
brosian, where I saw the Virgil with marginal notes
of Petrarch ; some of the pieces of MSS. of the
Plautus and Terence, fragments edited by Mai. —
Some of the paintings there are beautiful. The
Milanese Raphael has some heads expressing such
mild heavenly meekness as is scarcely imagined.

[This Raphael is, as many readers will know, the
Sposalizio, or Espousal of the Virgin Mary and
Joseph. Being an early work by the master, it
exhibits, in its ''mild heavenly meekness," more of

MILAN 183

the style of Perugino than of that which became
distinctive of Raphael in his maturity.]

When at Milan, I spent almost all my money in
books, buying nearly 3CX) volumes, not being able to
resist that thirst for printed sheets, many of which I
never shall read.

Swarrow, the Governor of Milan, when the
Emperor was there, accompanying him to the theatre,
saw that one poor man in the pit, leaning against a
box, had dared to keep his hat on. Violently
enraged, he enters the box, without leave or saying
a word ; and, leaning over the box with all his orders
dangling at his breast, applies two hearty slaps to the
poor man's cheeks, and then, rising majestically,
leaves the box, and goes to receive the despot's
smile. This making a great hubbub, and exciting a
great deal of ridicule against the noble police-officer,
he insisted with the police-director that not a word
more should be allowed to be said.

When at Milan, there came Sgricci, a Tuscan,
under the patronage of Monti, who puffed him most
egregiously, especially his tragic improvisati. I
accompanied de Breme to Casa Crivelli, where I saw
Swarrow and a cardinal ; a dried-up ganache [?] with
a face of malice that had dried up with the features of
the face, but still remained sketched there in pretty
forcible lines. The improvisator entered ; yellow

i84 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

boots with trousers, blue coat, and a Flemish collar to
his shirt. He began The Loves of Psyche and Cupid ;
commonplace, unpoetic rhymes. Coriolanus, a tra-
gedy ; such an abominable opiate that, in spite of
my pinching myself and Cavalier Breme rousing me
every minute, I found myself, when ended, roused by
the applause from a pleasant nap. Heard him again
at the theatre; terza rima ; The Grief of Mausoka}
The only bearable parts were those about Aurora,
night, etc., which he had beforehand prepared, to
clap-in at convenience, from the Gradus ad Parnassum,
The tragedy being drawn out, first came The Death of
Socrates. He came forward, saying that, this subject
being undramatizable, he would, if the public insisted,
attempt it, but that he had rather another might be
drawn. Montezuma came out. " Oh," says he, " this
will touch your passions too much, and offend many
probably personally." The public here stoutly
hissed, and insisted he should proceed ; he as stoutly
called on the boy to draw, which he did, and, there
coming forth Eteocles and Polynices, he was satisfied,
making olla podrida scenica of French ragouts, Italian
minestras, and Greek black soup. It was reported
that Monti's taking him up was by the persuasion of
his daughter. An epigram was written upon Sgricci,
as follows nearly —
^ /. e. Artemisia, who built the mausoleum of Halicarnassus.

MILAN 185

" In questi tempi senza onore e merto
Lavora Sgricci in vano, ha un altro il serto."

[The translation of this couplet is — " In these times
without honour and merit Sgricci labours in vain —
another man wears the wreath." It will be seen that
the epigram, if such it can be considered, runs in
favour of Sgricci. He was a native of Arezzo, and, as
our text shows, a renowned improvisatore. I happen
to possess a printed tragedy of his, Ettore, which is
notified as having been improvised in the Teatro Ca-
rignano, Turin, on June 13, 1823. Shelley in January
182 1 attended one of Sgricci's improvisations, and was
deeply impressed by it as a wonderful effort, and even,
considered in itself, a fine poetic success. In 1869,
being entrusted with some MS. books by Shelley
through the courtesy of his son the late Baronet, I
read a tribute of some length which the great English
poet had paid to the Italian improvisatore : it has
not yet been published, and is included, I suppose,
among the Shelley MSS. bequeathed to the Bodleian
Library. The subject on which Shelley heard
Sgricci improvise was Hector (Ettore). One rather
suspects that the Ettore improvised in 1823 may have
been partly reminiscent of its predecessor in 1821.
The portrait of Sgricci, a man of some thirty-five
years of age, appears in the book which I possess :
it shows a costume of the fancy-kind that Polidori

i86 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

speaks of. I have looked through the tragedy, and
do not concur in the tone of ridicule in which
Polidori indulges. An improvise can only be
criticized as an improvise, and this appears to me
a very fair specimen. — As I have had occasion here
to re-mention Shelley, I may as well add that Medwin
{Life of Shelley, vol. i, p. 250), says that the poet had
no animosity against Polidori, consequent upon any
past collisions : " Shelley I have often heard speak of
Polidori, but without any feeling of ill-will."]

Going one evening with L[ord] B[yron] and Mr.
H[obhouse] to B[reme]'s box, Mr. Hobhouse, Bor-
sieri, and myself, went into the pit, standing to look
at the ballet. An officer in a great-coat came and
placed himself completely before me with his grena-
dier's hat on. I remarked it to my companions :
" Guarda a colui colla sua berretta in testa " (I believe
those were my words), waiting a few minutes to see if
he would move. I touched him, and said, " Vorrebbe
farmi la grazia di levarsi il cappello purch'io vegga ? "
He turning said " Lo vorreste 1 " with a smile of
insult. I answered : "SI, lo voglio."^ He then asked

1 The speeches run thus : (a) Look at that man, with his cap
on his head, (d) Would you do me the favour of taking off
your hat, so that I may see? (c) Would you wish for it?
(d) Yes, I wish it. In Italian, this last phrase has an imperative
tone, " I win it." — It may be added that the Austrian's phrase
" Lo vorreste?" was itself not civil : the civil form would have
been " Lo vorrebbe ella ? '*

MILAN 187

me if I would go out with him. I, thinking he meant
for a duel, said, " Yes, with pleasure " ; and called Mr.
Hobhouse to accompany me. He did. When pass-
ing by the guard-house he said, " Go in, go in there " ;
I said I would not, that it was not there I thought of
going with him. Then he swore in German, and drew
half his sabre with a threatening look, but Hobhouse
held his hand. The police on guard came, and he
delivered me to their custody. I entered the guard-
house, and he began declaiming about the insult to
one like him. I said I was his equal, and, being in
the theatre, to any one there. " Equal to me ? " he
retorted ; "you are not equal to the last of the
Austrian soldiers in the house " ; and then began
abusing me in all the Billingsgate German he was
master of — which I did not know till afterwards. In
the meanwhile the news had spread in the theatre, and
reached de Breme and L[ord] Byron, who came run-
ning down, and tried to get me away, but could not on
any plea. De Breme heard the secretary of police
say to the officer : " Don't you meddle with this, leave
it to me." De Breme said he would go to Bubna
immediately, and get an order for my dismission ; on
which the officer took Lord Byron's card, as bail that
I would appear to answer for my conduct on the
morrow. Then I was released.

Next morning I received a printed order from
the police to attend. As soon as I saw the order

i88 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

I went to De Breme, who accompanied me to the
gate. I entered. " Where do you wish your pass-
port vised for?" "I am not thinking of going."
"You must be off in four-and -twenty hours for
Florence." " But I wish for more time." " You
must be off in that time, or you will have some-
thing disagreeable happen to you." Breme, upon
hearing this, immediately set off to Bubna, and I
to Lord Byron, who sent Mr. Hobhouse in company
of Colonel McSomething to Swarrow to ask that I
might not be obliged to go. They went. Swarrow
received them with a pen in his hand ; said it was
a bagatelle ; that the Secretary of Police had been
there in the morning, and that he had told him of it.
That it was nothing, that I should find myself as well
off in any other city as there, and that, if I stayed,
something worse might happen. Hobhouse tried to
speak. S[warrow] advanced a foot ; " Give my
compliments to Lord Byron ; am sorry I was not at
home when he called." " But if this is so mere a
trifle . . ." — "I hope Lord Byron is well"; advanc-
ing another foot, and then little by little got them
so near the door that they saw it was useless, and
left him. De Breme in the meanwhile had been
to Bubna. Bubna received him very politely, and
said he had already seen Colonel M., who had ex-
plained to him the whole ; and that for the mistake
of speaking to the officer on guard he thought it

MILAN 189

enough that I had been put under arrest. " I
am much obHged to you, and am glad then that
my friend will not have to leave Milan." " What do
you mean ? " Breme explained. " It is impossible,
there must be some mistake, for I have had no
memorial of it. I will see Swarrow this evening
about it." De Breme mentioned with what idea I had
left the theatre. Bubna said that German soldiers
had one prejudice less; and at the theatre in the
evening I heard many instances of the officers of
the Austrian Army acting meanly in this respect.
Amongst others, Bubna's son, being challenged for
insulting a lady at a public ball, accepted the
challenge, but said there were several things he had
to settle first, and that he would appoint a day for the
following week. He left Milan the Saturday before.
A young Italian had a dispute with a Hussar officer,
and challenged him, for which he was brought before
the police and reprimanded. Some days after, the
officer, standing at a coffee-room door, asked him if
he wished to settle the affair with him. He said yes,
and they immediately entered. The officer spoke to
several of his companions in the room, and they all
struck the young man, and pushed him out. He
could get no redress.

[This affair of Dr. Polidori's shindy in the theatre
excited some remark. His feelings in favour of Italy
and Italians were keen, as he was himself half Italian

I90 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

by blood ; and he was evidently not disinclined to
pick a quarrel with an Austrian military man. He
was indiscreet, and indeed wrong, in asking an
Austrian officer on guard to take off his cap ; and,
although he addressed the officer at first in courteous
terms, his expression " Lo voglio " was not to be
brooked even by a civilian. Lord Byron mentioned
the matter in a letter to his sister, November 6, 1816,
as follows : " Dr. Polidori, whom I parted with before
I left Geneva (not for any great harm, but because he
was always in squabbles, and had no sort of conduct),
contrived at Milan, which he reached before me, to
get into a quarrel with an Austrian, and to be ordered
out of the city by the Government. I did not even
see his adventure, nor had anything to do with it,
except getting him out of arrest, and trying to get
him altogether out of the scrape." And on the same
day to Thomas Moore. "On arriving at Milan I
found this gentleman in very good society, where he
prospered for some weeks ; but at length, in the
theatre, he quarrelled with an Austrian officer, and
was sent out by the Government in twenty-four hours.
I could not prevent his being sent off; which, indeed,
he partly deserved, being quite in the wrong, and
having begun a row for row's sake. He is not a bad
fellow, but young and hot-headed, and more likely to
incur diseases than to cure them." Beyle likewise
has left an account of the affair, translated thus.

MILAN 191

" One evening, in the middle of a philosophical
argument on the principle of utility, Silvio Pellico, a
delightful poet, came in breathless haste to apprise
Lord Byron that his friend and physician Polidori
had been arrested. We instantly ran to the guard-
house. It turned out that Polidori had fancied him-
self incommoded in the pit by the fur cap of the
officer on guard, and had requested him to take it
off, alleging that it impeded his view of the stage.
The poet Monti had accompanied us, and, to the
number of fifteen or twenty, we surrounded the
prisoner. Every one spoke at once. Polidori was
beside himself with passion, and his face red as a
burning coal. Byron, though he too was in a violent
rage, was on the contrary pale as ashes. His patrician
blood boiled as he reflected on the slight consideration
in which he was held. The Austrian officer ran from
the guard-house to call his men, who seized their
arms that had been piled on the outside. Monti's idea
was excellent : * Sortiamo tutti — restino solamente
i titolati ' (Let us all go out — only the men of title to
remain). De Breme remained, with the Marquis di
Sartirana, his brother, Count Confalonieri, and Lord
Byron. These gentlemen having written their names
and titles, the list was handed to the officer on guard,
who instantly forgot the insult offered to his fur cap,
and allowed Polidori to leave the guard-house. In
the evening, however, the Doctor received an order to

192 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

quit Milan within twenty-four hours. Foaming with
rage, he swore that he would one day return and
bestow manual castigation on the Governor who had
treated him with so little respect." — One other obser-
vation of Beyle, regarding Polidori and Byron, may be
introduced here. " Polidori informed us that Byron
often composed a hundred verses in the course of the
morning. On his return from the theatre in the
evening, still under the charm of the music to which
he had listened, he would take up his papers, and
reduce his hundred verses to five-and-twenty or thirty.
He often sat up all night in the ardour of composition."
— As Polidori's passport is prominently mentioned
at this point of the Diary, I may add a few particulars
about it. It was granted on April 17, 18 16, by the
Conte Ambrogio Cesare San Martino d'Aglia,
Minister of the King of Sardinia in London ; and it
authorized Polidori to travel in Italy — no mention
being made of Switzerland, nor yet of Lord Byron.
The latest visa on the passport is at Pisa, for
going to Florence. This is signed " II Governatore,
Viviani," whom we may safely assume to have been
a relative of Shelley's Emilia. The date of this final
visa is February 17, 18 17.]

October 30. — Got up early next morning, packed up
my books and things ; then went to seek for a coach
that was parting for Lodi. Found one, and fixed that

LODI 193

a vetturino, who was going to set off next day for
Florence, should take me up at Lodi. Went to see
de Breme. He told me he had been to Bubna's, but
that he had found him out at a council of war, and
that he had left an order none should follow him. I
took leave of de Breme, and wept in his arms like a
child, for his kindness and friendship had been dear
to me. I took leave of L[ord] B[yron], H[obhouse],
and Guasco. The last offered me his services in any
way, and said he should take it as a favour the oftener
he was applied to. I got into the coach with only
5 louis in my pocket, leaving my books in the care
of de Breme, and left Milan with rage and grief so
struggling in my breast that tears often started in my
eyes, and all I could think of was revenge against
Swarrow and the officer in particular, and a hope that
before I left Italy there might be a rising to which I
might join myself I arrived at Lodi ; wrote to Lloyd
to ask him to lend me some money, and went to bed
exhausted.

October 31. — Up at 9: breakfasted. Went to see
the Duomo and other churches without feeling inter-
est ; the hospital, which is a magnificent building.
Returning to the inn, I met the vetturino. I found
in the coach a Prussian student of Heidelberg who
had made the campaigns of '13 and '14 with the
rest of his companions, and who was banished
13

194 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Heidelberg for slapping a Russian in the face.
Growled against his king for not keeping his promise ;
hated the French, and gave me an interesting account
of the way of spending the winter evenings in his part
of Germany, Pomerania ; the young working at some
pursuit of hand, the old relating their tale of youth.
A Milanese woman and son. We went that evening
to Casal Panterlungo. Supped and went to bed, I
and the Prussian in the same room.

November 2. — Up at 4. Across the Taro to Parma.
Went, in spite of my having so little money, in search
of books — Boccaccio's Fiammetta, The Cathedral
and Baptistery. From Parma to Reggio, a beautiful
town with fine palaces and porticoes, though, on
account of the few inhabitants, appearing a huge
sepulchre. To Rubiera : supped and slept.

November 3. — Up at 4. Through Modena, where
I saw the Duomo, and the Tower which contains the
Lecchia porticoes — palaces of the Duke — four orders
heaped one on the other. Here they examined my
box, and were going to send it to the dogana on
account of books; when, upon my saying I was a
physician, they let them pass.

At Bologna supped with the Prussian. To the
opera. Saw a ballet, extremely ridiculous : barbarian
dances with astonishing powers of limbs forming in
the air [postures] out and in on their feet.

BOLOGNA 195

November 4. — Up at 9. Went to see the churches
and [a] private gallery. After dinner roamed about
the town in a most melancholy mood, entering the
churches and sitting in the dark for an hour, etc.
Went to the Theatre of Cento Cavalli : beautiful
Greek architecture. To bed — a play.

November 5. — At 10, expecting to have been called
before, the vetturino came, saying he would not go,
since I had hindered the Prussian from setting off on
Monday, without security ; and that he would go to
the police to gain it from the Prussian that he should
be paid at Florence. After a good deal of disputing
I gave it, in a promissory note that I would pay if
he could not. Found afterwards it was only to get
time.

Went to see the churches, the public place, San
Prospero, the Neptune. After dinner to Madonna
Santa Lucia. Along the portico " Questo e da
vendere " ^ was written on portions of the wall. The
public cemetery. Saw a coffin, when dark, brought
into the church with torches. The poor are separated
from the rich, and have only the turf upon them : the
rich groan under the weight of marble. The priests,
monks, nuns, etc., all in separate squares ; a cardinal's
hat covering a death's head.

Returned to Bologna. Went to the theatre. Saw
1 "To be sold."

196 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Agnese : wept like a child : the acting of the madman
inimitable. Went to bed.

November 6. — Up at ii. Set off with the Prussian
and an Italian officer across the Apennines. Oxen in
continual use. Misty, so could not enjoy the view.
Dreadful winds to Pianoro. That evening the officer
related all the services he had been in ; French
liberty, Consulship, Emperor. Refused by the
Austrians ; went to Murat, and now going to offer
himself to the Pope ; if not accepted, to America.
For which side ? " Spanish or Creole." ^ He had the
unfeelingness to joke upon his father's being killed in
the time of the liberty-rows, saying he got that for not
changing ; on which I felt so nettled that I spoke for
half-an-hour upon the ruin the fickleness of the
Italians had brought upon themselves. He felt, I
think, ashamed ; at least he gave up that kind of light
talk.

Forgot to say that at Modena I presented^ my
passport so that the ** 24 hours " were invisible ; and
left at Modena one who had accompanied us from
Piacenza, telling the most barefaced lies about boars,
dogs, and thieves, that were ever heard.

^ These words form (I suppose) the answer of the Italian
officer—/, e. he would side with either party indifferently.

^ I presume that the word should be " presented " : the
writing looks like "pented."

FLORENCE 197

November 7. — At 4 up. Arrived at night at
Fortebuona. Dreadful wind and rain. Supped and
went to bed.

November 8. — At 5 walked a good part of the
road. Arrived at Florence by the Porta San Gallo,
through the Arch. The custom-house officer, when
we told him, if he wanted to look, he might open,
[replied] : " Che ? Un servo del sovrano ? Ci sono dei
facchini." ^

Florence, on entering, disappointed me, as we were
obliged to go round on account of the road being
mended. Went to the inn. Dressed — not having
changed linen since Milan. Went to the post : no
letters. In despair, remaining with only four scudi.
Walked about the town, — Arno : into the Cathedral
and Baptistery.

Went to seek Cavalier Pontelli.^ Knocked at his
door, along Arno — both before and behind. Could
not make any one hear. One who lived near
(Lecchini), upon my asking how to get in, said he was
thankful to say he was not Pontelli, and did not know.
Returned home. Gave the Prussian a missal I had

^ "What? A servant of the sovereign ? There are porters."
2 I suppose that Pontelli was a person who had been more or
less known to Dr. Polidori's father before the latter left Italy in
1787, and that the father had given his son some letter of intro-
duction or the like. Or possibly the introduction came from
some acquaintance in Geneva or in Milan.

rgS THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

bought at Bologna. He broke my pipe. Went to
bed. Wrote to Pontelli and Breme.

November 9. — Got up ; went to seek Pontelli.
Found he had a villa at Porta San Gallo. Went
thither, knocked ; saw his head pop out of the window
in a greasy night-cap. On my announcing myself,
he descended, opened the door, and received me
with welcome. Found him at breakfast, sausages,
caviare, etc. Sat down ; told me his housekeeper would
not show herself ; invited me to come to his house
instead of the inn. Went into town ; took a peep at
the Gallery — at the precious vases, Venus, etc. Went
to the inn. Put up my things, paid ; and, seeing
the Prussian envied me my desk, I gave it him, on
condition that, if we ever met again, he would paint
me a picture he sketched in my album. Went to
Pontelli ; dined; accompanied him to town. His
servant took a porter to carry my things to the Arno
house, and then we went to pay visits.

In the way he told me he lived very retired, and
very economically that he might not want ; that the
people now looked upon him with a good eye ; that
the Government also did not prosecute him ; and that
he in fine thought that a revolution would be general
— trying to persuade me that his avarice was mere
policy.

Went to pay a visit to Cavalier Tomasi, a Cortonian.

FLORENCE 199

Found many in the room, who all sat upon me about
English politics. Left them when they were going
to play. Thence to Abate Fontani, Librarian of the
Riccardi Library. Talked of Madame de Stael,
Finch, etc.

Returned home. Found I was in the house of the
Capponis, Pontelli having the lower storey.

November 10. — Up at 9. Dressed in black silk etc.,
the housekeeper going to mass ; and, Pontelli appar-
ently not being willing that I should accompany her,
I went out a little after, and went to the same church,
where I spoke with her. Looked at the church ; and
then went to San Lorenzo, Santo Spirito [Santa
Croce],^ where I saw the tomb of Galileo, Machiavelli,
Alfieri, Cosmo de* Medici, etc.

Returned, and went with a letter from de Breme
to the Countess of Albany. Found there several.
Presented my letter : " Very like your father."

[The Countess of Albany, it need hardly be said,
was the widow of Prince Charles Edward Stuart,
the "Young Pretender." Born in 1752, Princess of
Stolberg-Gedern, she married the Prince in 1772.
Being much ill-treated by him, she left him, and
maintained a practically conjugal relation with Conte

1 The name of Santa Croce is not in the MS. : but it ought
to be, as this is the church containing the sepulchral monuments
of Galileo, etc.

200 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Vittorio Alfieri, the famous dramatic poet: they
could have married after a while, but no nuptial
ceremony took place. Alfieri died in 1803, ^^^ the
Countess then became very intimate with a French
painter, much younger than herself, named Fabre.
She died in Florence in January 1824. If Dr. Polidori
had been a Jacobite, he would have held that, in
waiting upon the Countess of Albany, he w^as in
the presence of the Queen Dowager of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It will be
observed that the Countess told Polidori that he was
"very like his father." The latter had, from 1787 to
1789, been secretary to the Conte Alfieri, and had
known the Countess in Colmar and Paris. In one
of his privately printed books he has left on record
a little anecdote of the royal dame, which, trifling as
it is, may find a place here. " While the Conte
Alfieri was slowly recovering health I was invited
to pass the evenings with him and the Countess, so
that on various occasions I ^/ui terzo tra cotanto
senno! ^ But this honour did not last long. For
one time when I was with them the lady turned her
eyes on me, and asked Alfieri why my thighs were
rounded while his were flat. * Stuff and nonsense,'
he replied, wrinkling his nose, and he passed on to

1 " Was third amid so much intellect." The phrase is adapted
from a line in Dante's Inferno.

FLORENCE 201

some different talk. From that time I no more had
the honour of being one of the exalted party ; neither
could I complain of this, for I myself felt that that
question had been unseemly, and more in character
for a drab than for a discreet and modest lady."]

Conversation became general. Republics being
brought upon the tapis, I took to defending them,
especially against a gentleman near me. After some
time he went, and I gathered he was brother to the
King of Prussia.

Took my leave, and came to dinner, after going to
the caffe to wait for Pontelli. Rain hindered him
from keeping his appointment, so that I went at last
alone to San Gallo, he having the custom of staying
the Sundays only in town. Was presented by him
to Lecchini, the Inspector of Police, who recognized
me as a Tuscan, and the domiciliary communication
was made out as such.

November 11. — Tried to stay at home. Forced by
Pontelli's long-in-vain repeated hints to go out ;
jealous of his young housekeeper, though she is
hardly worth it. Roamed about, dined, and went
to bed.

November 12. — Same. Dined with him at a
restaurateur's.

November 13. — Got up at 7 ; tired of Pontelli, and
set off for Arezzo, with a shirt in my pocket and

202 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

with my dog. When at Incisa it began to rain ;
walked on through Feline, Monte Varchi, to Arezzo.
Thunder and lightning excessive, with violent rain.
I was at last so numbed that when roused I seemed
to be wakened ; my dog could not stand it, but at
7 miles from Arezzo fell. I did not perceive it, but
walked on. Arrived at 8, having walked 45 miles
in 12 hours, having stopped once at Incisa to eat
and rest. Found my uncle's house ; knocked. The
servant, hearing I was his nephew, flew up-stairs, and
I met a tall, stout, slovenly woman, my aunt. On
the second storey, where they lodged, they made a
fire. I changed my things for my uncle's, and while
changing he arrived — a tall, stout, handsome, mild-
looking man. Put myself to bed ; ate, and they left
me to sleep.

[This uncle, Luigi Polidori, was a physician, and
had a considerable reputation for the cure of the
local typhoid fever (tifo).]

November 14. — Found myself well ; no cold, only
my left groin stiff from a wound in my foot. Saw
my two cousins, Pippo and Teresa ; put myself to
study. After 6 went with my uncle to Signor Gori,
where I heard music. Four or five girls wanting
husbands, two priests, whitewashed walls, and several
young men, were the entertainment.

While at Arezzo, my life was quiet enough ; study

FLORENCE 203

till I went out at 6, when I went to play at cards and
talk at Signor Gori's. Saw the prisons. One of the
descendants of a true Lombard family walking about
in a dirty sailor-looking jacket. Signora Onesti and
daughter the most abominable scandal-talkers I ever
heard, though she was a Pitti. Library always shut.
The School of Ignatius a fine building. Churches
fine : the Chapel of St. Mary, the Cathedral with the
basso-rilievo altars, the church with the altar painted
by Vasari, etc. — I recovered my dog.

November 21. — Set off to return to Florence with
half-a-scudo in my pocket ; having refused to accept
from my uncle, not being wiUing to let him know
how it stood. Frost on the ground : hurt my foot.
Lost my dog again at Montesarchi. At Feline got
into a carriage, not being able to do more on account
of my foot. Met a physician, a cavaliere and his
wife. Arrived at 7 ; Pontelli lent me a scudo to pay.

November 22, 23, 24. — Stayed at Pontelli's on account
of my foot, though Pontelli tried to send me out
under pretence that I should see the town. But, not
being able, he stayed at home till 6, when he told me
I had better go to bed — which I generally did to quiet
him. No letters according to servant.

November 25. — Tired of Pontelli. That I might go
to Pisa, I issued out intending to sell my watch-chain ;
but as a last chance looked at the Post Office, and

204 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

found two letters from Lloyd, who, as soon as he had
received my letter, set off from Venice to see me.
On the road he lost his purse with 36 louis, and,
having no letters at Florence, he could only give me
20 scudi. Received me with great kindness, and
assured me that, while he had money, I should never
want. Dined with him and Somers. They advised
me to settle in Florence as physician to the English.
I however determined to see Vacca first ; wished him
good-bye, as he was obliged to go to Rome for money.

[There were two brothers named Vacca, or Vacca
Berlinghieri, who had been known to Gaetano Polidori
in Pisa before he left Italy with Alfieri. Gaetano
(who was a native of Bientlna near Pisa, his family
belonging chiefly to Pontedera) also stayed in the
same house with the Vacccis in Paris after leaving
his secretaryship with the Count. They were then
both medical students. One of them, Leopoldo —
who had been intimate with Napoleon while the latter
was in the Military College — abandoned medicine,
and served under the French empire in Spain, dying
not many years afterwards. The other brother,
Andrea, attained an European reputation in medicine,
and especially surgery: Shelley, when in Pisa, con-
sulted him more than once.]

November 26. — Went to seek the Naviglio, to go
by water to Pisa. At going out, stopped by the

PISA 205

gate-officer, who, on hearing me enquire where the
boat was, would not let me pass without proofs of
my being originario Toscano ; so I went to Lecchini,
and got him to write me a declaration. The boat
could not set off to-day, so returned to Pontelli and
went to bed.

November 27. — At 7 set off in the boat on the
Arno for Pisa.

November 29, 30, December i. — Stayed in my room,
copying Osteologia of my grandfather.

[This Osteologia is a treatise on osteology written
in verse — octave stanzas. The author was Agostino
Ansano Polidori, by profession a surgeon, born in
1 7 14 and deceased in 1778. In 1847 Gaetano Polidori
printed this poem at his private press. He had pre-
viously made a MS. copy of it, with an introduction
giving a few family-particulars. One statement made
in this introduction is that the mother of Agostino
was a Florentine lady named Folchi — " perhaps " (so
says Gaetano Polidori) *' descended from an English
family domiciled in Florence, which may have changed
its name Folks into Folchi."]

December 2. — Up at 9 ; went to see Vacca ; still at
hospital. While waiting for him, saw an Austrian
colonel, who, in the excess of his gratitude to Vaccci,
called him the Dio della Medicina. Vacca expressed
great joy to see me ; told me to make his house my

2o6 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

own ; to dine there when I chose, and often ; to
begin to-day ; not to use ceremony. Left me, and I
returned home; went to dine at V[acca]'s. Intro-
duced me to his wife, a pleasing pretty French-
woman, the former wife of his brother ; he had just
obtained the Pope's dispensation to marry her. Spent
the evening there.

December 3, 4, to 21. — Went to the hospital in the
mornings when Vacca was not ill; three or four
times to the Library. Studied in the mornings ; went
to dine either at Vacca's or at eating-house ; always
evenings at Vacca's. Corsi, a well-informed lawyer,
cav[alier] serv[ente] to V[acca ?] ; ^ Mario ex cav[alier]
serv[ente]. Cecco Castanelli, Pachiani, etc. ; chess
with the English ; with Vacca. For the various
information I obtained there see notes.

[The Pachiani (or Pacchiani) here mentioned must
certainly be the same Abate Pachiani who in 1820
introduced Shelley to the Contessina Emilia Viviani,
to whom the poet dedicated his Epipsychidion.
Medwin, in his Life of Shelley, a book which does not
now obtain many readers, gives a lively but partly
very unfavourable account of Pachiani : I append a few
extracts from it, more as being relevant to Shelley
than to Polidori. " Pachiani was about fifty years of
age, somewhat above the common height, with a
^ Rather (it must be understood) to Signora Vacck.

PISA 207

figure bony and angular. His face was dark as that
of a Moor. During the reign of Austrian despotism
he was admirably calculated for a spy. As to his
religion, it was about on a par with that of I'Abate
Casti. At Pisa, il Signore Professore was the title
by which he was generally known. He lost [his
professorship] by an irresistible bon mot. During one
of his midnight orgies, which he was in the habit of
celebrating with some of the most dissolute of the
students, he was interrogated, in the darkness, by the
patrole in the streets of Pisa as to who and what he
was, — to which questioning he gave the following
reply : * Son un uomo pubblico, in una strada pubblica,
con una donna pubblica.' His epigrams wtx^sanglants,
and he gave sobriquets the most happy for those
who offended him. His talent was conversation — a
conversation full of repartee and sparkling with wit ;
and his information (he was a man of profound
erudition, vast memory, and first-rate talent) made
him almost oracular. He was a mezzano, cicerone,
conoscitore, dilettante, and I might add ruffiano."^]
December 21. — Went in the evening to the Countess
Mastrani's. Ices, iced people, prepared poetry, music.
Went to the theatre, in the days past, several times.
Saw Goldoni's BugiardOy with Harlequin etc.

^ Rufifiano does not correspond to our word " ruffian," but to
" pimp " or " go-between."

2o8 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

December 22. — As usual.

December 23. — Same.

December 24. — Ditto.

December 25. — Christmas-day. Walked along Arno.
Spent the evening and dined at Vacca's.

December 26. — Up at 7. Went with Vacca to
Leghorn, a neat, regular, well-built town. The
first thing I went in search of was the sea, and I
stood gazing some time on the waves. The Public
Place and Strada Maestra fine. Saw Vescali's
collection of alabasters. Returned by 3. Dined
with Vacca. Went to the theatre with Mrs. Vacca,
who introduced me to Signora Bettina Franciuoli.

December 27. — As usual. Up at 4 — dined at Vacca's
— went to theatre, and to B.'s box.

December 28. — Went to hear nella Chiesa dei
Cavalieri (after a ride with Mrs. Vacca) Nicolini play
a sonata upon the organ, which is perhaps the finest
in Italy. There were the Prince Villafranca, the
Countess Castelfiel, Princess della Pace, and other
nobles. At Vacca's and theatre.

December 29. — Up at 3 J. Dined at Vacca's:
theatre. English etc. as usual.

December 30. — Up at i. Reading Sismondi. Got
up — went to Vacca to dine. After English, to the
Casa Mastrani : all evening with Sofia. The others
— Biribro, Dionigi.

LETTERS 209

[According to a letter from Lord Byron, April 11,
181 7, Dr. Polidori had at least three patients at Pisa
— Francis Horner, a child of Thomas Hope, and
Francis North, Lord Guilford. They all died —
which may or may not have been partly the Doctor's
fault.]

With this entry we come to the end of Dr.
Polidori's Diary — although (as I have before intimated)
not by any means to the end of his sojourn in Italy.
He saw Byron again in April 18 17 in Venice:
Shelley, to the best of my knowledge, he never
re-beheld.

I add here two letters which Polidori wrote to his
sister Frances (my mother, then a girl of only sixteen),
and two to his father. The first letter was written
soon after beginning the journey with Byron ; the
last not long after the date of parting from him. I
also add a letter sent to Mr. Hobhouse during
Polidori's sojourn with Byron, and a note, of much
later date, written by Mrs. Shelley to my father,
Gabriele Rossetti.

The letter to Mr. Hobhouse, it will be observed,
goes over some of the same details which appear in
the Diary. This letter has been copied by me from
the Broughton Papers, in the Manuscript Department
of the British Museum (Add. MSS. 36456 to 36483)^
I did my best to trace whether these papers contain
14

2IO THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

anything else relating to Polidori, and I do not think
they do. In fact, the affairs of Lord Byron, and the
very name of him, scarcely figure in those Broughton
Papers at all : for instance, I could not find anything
relating to his death.

John Polidori to Frances Polidori.

My dear Fanny,

I shall see Waterloo in a day or two — don't
you wish to be with me ? but there are many more
things that I have seen which would have given you
as much pleasure. Shakespear's Cliff at Dover, the
French coast, the phosphorescent sea, Bruges, Ghent,
Antwerp, and Brussels, have all got more than is in
any of Feinaigh's plates to excite the memory to
bring forth its hidden stores. The people amongst
whom we are at present dwelling is one that has
much distinguished itself in the noblest career, the
race for liberty ; but that tends little to the ennobling
of a people without the sun of literature also deigns
to shine upon them.

It was not the warlike deeds, the noble actions, of
the Greeks and Romans or modern Italians, that has
rescued these names from the effacing daub of obli-
vion ; if it had not been for their poets, their his-
torians, their philosophers, their heroes would in vain
have struggled for fame. Their actions would have

LETTER TO FRANCES POLIDORI 211

been recorded in the dusty legends of monks, and
consequently have been forgotten, like those of the
Belgians, Carthaginians, and others. How many fine
actions of modern times will be buried in oblivion
from the same want, and how many merely secondary
characters will be handed down with a halo round
their deeds reflected from the pages of historic genius !

I am very pleased with Lord Byron. I am with
him on the footing of an equal, everything alike : at
present here we have a suite of rooms between us.
I have my sitting-room at one end, he at the other.
He has not shown any passion ; though we have
had nothing but a series of mishaps that have put me
out of temper though they have not ruffled his. The
carriage, the new carriage, has had three stoppages.
We are at present at Brussels merely to have the
carriage-part well looked at and repaired.

The country till here has been one continued flat ;
and, except within this neighbourhood, we have not
seen a rising ground on which to feast our eyes.
Long avenues paved in the middle form the continued
appearance of our roads. The towns are magnificently
old, such as England cannot rival, and the state of
cultivation is much greater than in England : indeed
we have not seen a weed or a foot of waste ground
all our way. The people in the country show no
misery ; the cottages comfortable, whitewashed, large-

.4*

212 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

windowed, shining with brass utensils internally, and
only having as many heaps of dirt as there are in-
habitants — who certainly throw away all their clean-
liness upon the house, fields, roads, and windows.
But I will not fill my letter with this, as some time
you will either see my Journal in writing or print —
Murray having offered me 500 guineas for it through
Lord Byron. L[ord] B[yron] is going to give me the
manuscript, when done printing, of his new cantos of
Childe Harold}

Have you seen Mrs. Soane and Mr. S[oane] ? how
are they? If you see them, remember me to her and
him. I shall write when I have seen the seat of his
hero's glory, mine's disgrace ; no, not disgrace —
misfortune. See Mrs. S[oane], and write how she is.

How are you all at home } Papa, Mamma, Meggy
(have you heard from her?), Charlotte, Bob, Henry,
Eliza, and Mr. Deagostini. Remember me to all, and
to all who enquire about me not merely from curiosity
— telling me in your next whether they exceed the
number o. I am very well, and wrote Mamma from
Ostend.

I remain, my dear Fanny,

Your affect. Brother,

J. POLIDORI.

Brussels, May 2, 18 16.

1 No doubt this intention was not carried into effect.

LETTER TO HOBHOUSE 213

Write to me — Dr. Polidori, a Geneve, poste restante,
— and soon, as I shall be there in 1 2 days.

To John Hobhouse, Whitton Park,

NEAR HOUNSLOW.

Coblentz, May 11, 1816.

Dear Sir,

As we are at last some way on our
journey, I take a sheet of paper up, in despair of
filling it, to tell you we are both well and hearty.
Lord Byron's health is greatly improved, his stomach
returning rapidly to its natural state. Exercise and
peace of mind, making great advances towards the
amendment of his corps delabre^ leave little for
medicine to patch up. His spirits, I think, are also
much improved. He blithely carols through the day,
* Here's to you, Tom Brown ' : and, when he has
done, says, * That's as well as Hobhouse does it.'
You and his other friend, Scrope Davies, form a great
subject of conversation.

God ! here I am at the end of all my thoughts.
Oh no ! Waterloo was ridden over by my Lord on a
Cossack horse, accompanied by myself on a Flemish
steed ; Lord Byron singing Turkish or Arnaout
riding-tunes, and your h[umble] s[ervant] listening.
We had a very good day of it. Lord Byron visited
Howard's (I think, Colonel) burying-place twice.

214 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

We have had two days by preeminence in our
tour — to-day and Waterloo. To-day we came from
Bonn hither through the finest scenes I ever saw,
modern and ancient; the 13th and i8th century
forming an olla podrida with the bases given in the
year i. Towers and towns and castles and cots were
sprinkled on the side of a . . . But here I am on
poetic stilts, cut short for prose ones.

They boast — the Ministerialists and others — of
ours being the happy land. I should like to carry
John Bull to Flanders and the Rhine : happiness,
content, cleanliness (here and there), husbandry,
plenty without luxury, are here bestowed on all.
War has had no effect upon the fields ; and even at
Waterloo no one (except for the glittering button
or less brilliant cuirass in beggar's hand) would
imagine two such myriaded armies had met there.
No sulkiness is seen upon the face here, and no impu-
dence. On the Rhine and in Flanders there are
hardly any beggars. To-day we had nosegays given
us by little girls for centimes. But the other day,
coming to Battice, we met the best beggars : three
little girls, pretty though not well dressed, ran
along our carriage, crying out — " Donnez-nous un
sou. Monsieur le G6n6ral en chef"; and another,
" Chef de bataillon." Having given these some, a
boy followed, pulling faces comic enough to make

LETTER TO GAETANO POLIDORI 215

such grave dons laugh, and crying out, "Vivent
Messieurs les Rois des Hanoveriens — donnez-moi
un sou."

As I fear I have tried your eyes, and lost my
pains after all on account of the illegibility of my
accursed pen's scratches, I must end — assuring you
at the same time I am with esteem

Yours etc.,

J. POLIDORI.

We count upon being at Geneva in ten days at
best. Excuse the bad writing etc., for I am in a
fever of digestion after my ride. — J. P.

To Gaetano Polidori.

September 20, 1816.

My dear Father,

You judged right with regard to my
writing. I had written twice since your letter
announcing The Pamphleteer^ and was anxiously
waiting yours. Your letter gave me pleasure ;
and I was indeed in want of some just then, for
I was in agitation for my parting from Lord
Byron. We have parted, finding that our tempers
did not agree. He proposed it, and it was settled.
There was no immediate cause, but a continued
series of slight quarrels. I believe the fault, if any.

2i6 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

has been on my part ; I am not accustomed to have
a master, and therefore my conduct was not free and
easy. I found on settling accounts that I had 70
napoleons ; I therefore determined to walk over
Italy, and (seeing the medical establishments) see if
there proves a good opportunity to settle myself, so
that I hope I am still off your hands for nine
months : perhaps Lady Westmorland, who is at
Rome, is desirous of having an English physician
for longer, I having a letter for her from Mme. de
Stael. I shall write to-day to Vacca and Zio [uncle]
for letters to Milan to physicians, in your name; and
at present, till I think they and my trunks can have
arrived, will wander amongst the Alps, — in which
course I am now at Thun, almost in the centre. I
have seen Mont Blanc and its glaciers, and will see
the Jungfrau, Grindelwald, and Grimsel. Then I
will go by the Simplon to Milan, whither direct to
me poste-restante, only putting my Giovanni etc.
names in full, as there are Polidoris there.^ I am
in good health and spirits ; I hope this won't hurt
yours, for assure yourself I will do all I can not
to allow you to feel any inconvenience on my
account.

Remember me to my mother, who I know will

* These Polidoris were not (so far as I know) members of the
same family as John Polidori.

LETTER TO GAETANO POLIDORI 217

feel deeply this disappointment ; to Mary,^ Fanny,
and Charlotte, to Signor Deagostini and Signor De
Ocheda, and to all.

If you could get me letters of introduction, they
would be of great use. In the meanwhile, my dear
father, believe me

Your affectionate son,

John Polidori.

John Polidori to Gaetano Polidori—
Translation.

Arezzo, November 14, 1816.

Dear Father,

I fear you must be in much anxiety at not
having heard from me for so long ; but the reason
was that I did not wish to write before having seen
my uncle — to whom I went the day before yesterday,
and who received me with great affection and pleasure.
I wrote to him from Thun. Thence I went to
Grindelwald and Lauterbrunner ; thence to Inter-
lachen, and, by the Lake of Brientz, to Meyringen ; by
the Grimsel in the Valais to Obergasteln ; thence to
Brieg ; and then by the Simplon down to Farinoli
in the Borromean Islands. Thence I embarked to
Sestri Calende ; thence to Milan — where, meeting the

* This was Dr. Polidori's elder sister, Maria Margaret, who
in my time was invariably called " Margaret " in the family.

2i8 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

poet Monti, Lord Byron, Monsignor de Breme, and
others of my acquaintance, I remained some weeks.
Thence I went to Florence, by Bologna, Modena,
Parma, and Piacenza, and crossing the Apennines. In
Florence I stayed two days, and saw Cavalier
Pontelli, Abate Fontani, Dr. FVosini, and others.
Thence I went on foot to Arezzo, where I found my
uncle, my aunt, Pippo, and Teresa, all well ; and they
received me with great cordiality into their house,
where I now am.

Seeing, by your letter to my uncle, in how much
trouble you are on my account, I have determined,
after learning whether Lady Westmorland will employ
me or no — if yes, to go to Rome ; if no, to go straight
from Leghorn to London, to the bosom of my family.
I shall soon hear from Lady Westmorland, as Lady
Jersey undertook, at the instance of Monsignor de
Breme, to ask her mother whether she wants me or
not, and she is now in Florence, en route for Rome.
In case she should tell me yes, I shall at once go to
Rome : but meanwhile I don't proceed any farther
than Arezzo. If she says no, I shall be off to Leghorn,
and return to London.

I wish that in your next letter you would send me
enough money, in a bill on Florence, for paying the
passage from Leghorn to London, for the chance of
my not having enough remaining. . . .

LETTERS 219

When I see you again I shall have much to tell you
about, but will not put it into a letter. Suffice it that
I have found that what you told me about Italy is
but too true. I am in good health. . . .

Your affectionate son,

John Polidori.

[To this letter the uncle Luigi Polidori added
something. One point regarding Lord Byron is of a
certain interest.]

I became indignant at some references [made by
John Polidori] to the strange conduct of that Lord
with whom he was travelling : but he kept his temper
well — I envy him for that. All these people are hard :
Saevus enim ferme sensus communis in ilia fortuna.
—Patience !

[My father, about the date of this ensuing letter, met
Mrs. Shelley several times, and he liked her well. He
did not think her good-looking : indeed I have heard
him say " Era brutta " (she was ugly). — The letter is
written in fairly idiomatic, but by no means faultless,
Italian. — I am not aware whether Gaetano Polidori
supplied Mrs. Shelley with information, such as she
asked for, for her Biography of Alfieri : perhaps a
minute inspection of the book might show. — Cleo-
patra, acted in 1775, was Alfieri's first attempt at
tragedy.]

220 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

Rsiirovr, j4prt7 20, iS^$.

Courteous Signor Rossetti,

Thank you so much for your amiable reply,
and the interest you show in the undertaking of a
pen but too unworthy of those great names which give
so much lustre to your country. Meanwhile I am
about to make a farther request : but am afraid of
showing myself troublesome, and beg you to tell me
your opinion sincerely. I should not like to seem to
take impertinent liberties ; and, if my idea appears
to you impracticable, don't say anything about it
to any one.

I am informed that your Father-in-law the cele-
brated Polidori can relate many interesting circum-
stances regarding Alfieri. The Life which 1 am writing
will be printed in Dr. Lardner's Cyclopcedia : therefore
it is very short, running perhaps to 70 pages — not
more. Thus, if I could introduce some details not yet
known but worthy of publication, I should be very
pleased indeed. I don't know whether Polidori would
be willing to give me such details. For example,
I should like to know whether Alfieri was really so
melancholy and taciturn as is said by Sir John
Hobhouse in his work, Illustrations to the Fourth Canto
of Childe Harold ; whether he gave signs of attach-
ment to his friends, and whether he was warmly

LETTER FROM MRS. SHELLEY 221

loved by them in return. Some anecdotes would be
welcomed by me; also some information about the
Countess of Albany. There is an affectation of
silence, as to all that relates to her, in whatever
has yet been written concerning Alfieri. But, now
that she is dead, this is no longer necessary. Were
they married ? If not, nothing need be said about
it ; but, if they were, it would be well to affirm as
much.

I shall be in London next Sunday, and shall be
staying there several days. But I am in a quarter
so distant from yours (7 Upper Eaton Street, Gros-
venor Place) that it would be indiscreet to ask for a
visit from you — and much more indiscreet to say
that, if Signor Polidori would visit me, he could
perhaps tell me some little things more easily than
by writing. As the Tuscans say, " Lascio far a lei." ^
You will do whatever is most fitting, and will give
me a reply at your convenience.

Repeating the thanks so much due to your kind-
ness, believe me

Your much obliged servant,

M. W. P. Shelley.

I hear that Alfieri was intimate with Guiccioli of
Ravenna, the latter being then quite young ; and

^ " I leave the question to you."

222 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

they had a joint idea and project (which did not turn
out manageable) of establishing a national theatre
in Italy. Possibly Signor Polidori knows about this.
Is there any historical work containing particulars
about the closing years of the royal husband of the
Countess of Albany ? I don't know, and am in the
dark. He (is it not so ?) was the last of the Stuarts,
except his brother the Cardinal of York.

Oh what trouble I am giving you to reply ! Really
I now feel more than ashamed of it. But you are
so kind. And, besides, the grammar of this letter
must be like Alfieri's Cleopatra.

INDEX OF NAMES

Agnes E (drama), 196
Aix-la-Chapelle, 74
Albany, Countess of, 199-202
Alfieri, Count, 200, 219-222
Andreini, 170

Adamo, by, 170

Antwerp, 46-51, 54, 55
Arezzo, 202, 218
Arrow, Eliza, 31
Avenches, 93, 94, 96

B

Bale, 90, 91

Battice, 73, 74, 213

Beauharnais, Prince Eugene, 175

Berger, 31, 108, no, 135

Berne, 92

Beyle, Henri, 173, 177, 190, 192

Reminiscences of Napoleon,

by, 177

Bologna, 194, 195

Bonn, 80

Bonnet, Charles, 97

Bonstetten, C. V. de, 105, 132,

137, 147, 148
Borsieri, 173, 174, 177, 186

// Giorno, by, 177

Breadalbane, Lord, 139, 145
Brelaz, Madame, 139, 143-146,

152, 153, 155, 168, 182
Breme, Cavalier de, 171, 173, 177

de (or Brema), Monsignor,

139, 147, 170, 172-177, 182,
183, 187-189, 191, 193, 198,
218

Breme, de (or Brema), Monsignor

Inuy by, 176
Breuss, Countess, 12, 13, 17, 134,

141-143, 152
Bridgens, R., 3

Costumes of Italy, etc.f

by, 3

Brieg, 160-163

Broglie, Due Victor de, 137, 138

Duchesse Victor de, 137-9,

146

Bruges, 35

Brussels, 57-59, 61, 68, 211

Bubna, 173, 187-189, 193

Junior, 189

Byron, Lady, 26

Lord, I, 7, 8, II, 12, 15,

25, 28, 33, 40, 44, 51-53, 62,
67, 68, 70, 71, 74, 88, 89,
97-105, 107, III, 112, 1 17-120,
123-126, 128, 132, 133, 135-
140, 146, 147, 152, 158, 170,
173, 174, 179-181, 186-188,
190-193, 209-211, 213, 215,
218, 219

Childe Harold, by, 25,

66, 67, 71, 80, 83, 84, 87, 94,
95, 212

ChurchilVs Grave, by,

28,29

Letters and Journals of,

loi, 133

The Vampyre (frag-
ment), by, 14-17, 125

To Princess Charlott

by, 112

223

224

INDEX OF NAMES

Caluro, 176, 177
Campagne Chapuis, 1 1 7
Canterbury, 26
Caravella, 140
Carlsruhe, 88, 90
Carnot, 46, 55
Castan, 136
Casti, Abate, 70

Novel le by, 70, 71

Chamounix, 151

Charles Edward, Prince, 199, 222

Charles V, 37, 90

Chillon, 153

Churchill, Rev. Charles, 27, 30

Clairmont, Clare, 99-103, 107,

108, 124-126, 133-135
Clemann, Harriet, 146

Madame, 139, 143, 146

Coblentz, 83, 85

Colbum Henry, 13, 14, 18, 20
Coleridge, S. T., 113

Christabel, by, 126, 128, 129

Fire, Famine, and Slaughter,

by, 113, I IS
Cologne, 76-80
Cologny, 98

Conjnigham, Lord, 149, 150
Copeland, Thomas, 7
Coppet, 141
Corsi, 206

Courier, The, 23, 112
Cowper, Lord, 173, 174
Curran, J. P., 117

Dacosta, 69

Davies, Scrope B., 25, 151, 152,

213
Deagostini, John A., 6, 7
Domo d'Ossola, 165
Dover, 27, 31

Dowden, Professor, 118

■ Life of Shelley, by, 118, 119,

124-126, 132
Drachenfels, the, 81
Dumont, Etienne, 104, 139, 147

E

Ehrenbreitstein, 85
Einard, Madame, 105, 106
Evans, Rev. Mr., 145

Fabre, 200

Fantasmagoriana, 125

Finch, Colonel, 173, 174, 180

Fletcher, William, 31

Florence, 197, 203, 218

Floris, Franz, 50

Angels and Devils, by, 50,

56
Folchi, Signorina, 205
Francis, Emperor, 183
Freiburg (Baden), 90

Galilei, Galileo, 180
Garnett, Dr., 8, 172

Dictionary of National

Biography, article in, 8, ii

Gatelier, Abate, 139, 141

Madame, 13, 141

Geneva, 98, 104, 106, 141, 149

Genthoud, 141

Ghent, 37-39, 41,42, 48

Gianni, 179

Glenorchy, Lord, 140, 145

Godwin, William, 107, n 3-11 5

131

Gordon, Mrs., 71

Pryse L., 47, 66, 69-71

Gori, 202, 203

Gray, Thomas, 106, 147, 148

INDEX OF NAMES

225

Grove, Harriet, 113
Guasco, 173, 174, 177, 193
Guiccioli, Count, 221
Guilford, Lord (Francis), 10, 209
Guttannen, 138, 139

H

Hamilton, Lady Dalrymple,
140

Helmhoft, Miss, 80

Hentsch, 105, 107

Hervey, Mrs., 147

Hobhouse, Sir J. Cam, 25, 28,
140, 151, 158, 173, 174, 180,
186-188, 193, 209, 213, 220

Heche, General, 82, 84

Hogg, T. Jefferson, 130

Homer, Francis, 209

Hougoumont, 63-65

Howard, Colonel, 64, 66, 213

Hunt, Leigh, 131

Hunter, Sir C, 89

Isella, 164
Isola Bella, 166
Italy, 10

J

Jacquet, Madlle., 145
Jersey, Countess of, 181, 218

Earl of, 173, 174

Jordaens, 52

iSV. Apollonia, by, 52

Julia Alpinula, 94, 95

Kaft, 78, 79

Kalf, 77

Kauflfman, Angelica, 127

Keats, John, 174

Keswick, 131

Kinnoul, Lord, 149

Kruger, 40

Judgment of Solomon, by, 40

Lac, Chateau du, 57, 69, 70

Lake Leman, 98, 99

Lausanne, 96

Lecchini, 197, 201, 205

Leghorn, 208

Leigh, Hon. Mrs., 51, 140

Medora, 140

Lewis, Matthew G., 125, 140,

141
Liege, 72
Lloyd, 140, 150, 173, 181, 182,

193, 204
Locatelli, Dr., 173, 181
Lou vain, 72

M

Malines, 55, 57
Mannheim, 88
Marceau, General, 83-85
Marschner, 24

The Vampyre, opera, by,

24

Martineau, Harriett, 3
Massey, Junior, 143-145

Mr., 144

Mastrani, Countess, 207
Mayence, 86, 87
Medwin, Captain, 7

Conversations with Byron,

by, 7

Life of Shelley, by, 186 206

Metsys, Quintin, 50

Milan, 167-171, 173, 182, 183,

190, 193, 217
Milton, John, 99, 170
Modena, 194, 196
Monti, Signora, 178

226

INDEX OF NAMES

Monti, Vincenzo, 1 71-174, 178,

183, 191, 218

Homer translated, by, 1 78

Moore, Thomas, 118

Life of Byron, by, 118, 123

Morat, 92-94

Morning Chronicle, The, 13, 14,

17, 18, 22
Murat, King Joachim, 148
Murray, John, 8, 9, 20, 21, 44, 212

N
Napoleon I., 47, 54, 55, 63-65,

69, 70, 82, 86, 127, 173, 177,

204
National Portrait Gallery, 3
Negri, Marchese, 173, 174, 178,

179
Nelli, 180
New Monthly Magazine, The, 13,

IS, 18, 19
New Times, The, 4
North, Frederick, 181
Norwich, 3

Odier, Dr., 118, 119, 133, 151
Odier, Madlle., 122, 132
Onesti, Signora, 203
Ostend, 32, 34

P
Pachiani, Abate, 206, 207
Peacock, T. L., 131
Pellico, Silvio, 191
Pictet de Sergy, 104, 105, 140
Pisa, 192, 205, 209
Polidori, Agostino A., 205
Osteologia, by, 205

Charlotte, 11, 32, 103

Dr. John W., 2

Cajetafz, by, 30, 44,

123

Polidori, Dr. John W., Costumes

of Italy, etc., by, 3
Ernestus Berchtold,

by, 2, 19, 22, 23, 127-129

Oneirodynia, by, 120

Punishment of Death,

by, 180, 215
The Vampyre, by, 2,

11-18, 20-23, 125, 126

Ximenes, by, 2, 124

Gaetano, 2, 5, 9, 155, 170,

197, 200, 204, 205, 219-221

Luigi, 155, 202, 218, 219

Signora, 202

Pollent, 41

Pontelli, Cavalier, 197-199, 201,

203, 205, 218
Porro, 172, 173
Potocka, Countess, 125, 126

memoirs of, 127

Pradt, Abb6 de, 56

R

Raphael, 182

Lo Sposalizio, by, 182, 183

Reed, Charlotte, 5-7

Regnier, Grand Duke, 164, 171

Rembrandt, 70, 81

Rhine, the, 80, 82, 86, 108
Rocca, 137, 139, 146

Judge, 137, 147

Roche, Dr. de, loi, 104
Rogers, Samuel, iii, 112
Rossetti, Frances, 209

Gabriele, 209, 219

Wm. M., 10

Memoir of Shelley, by,

10
Rossi, 105, 122, 132, 133, 139,

148, 149
Rousseau, 106
Rubens, 39, 51

INDEX OF NAMES

227

Rubens, Adoration of Magi, by, 53

Assembly of Saittts, by, 51

Crucifixion, by, 52

Descent from the Cross, by,

52, S3

Martyrdom of St. Peter, by,

78

St. George, etc., by, 51

St. Roch and the Plague-
stricken, by, 39

Visitation, by, 53

Rushton, Robert, 31, 152
Ryan, Major, 130

Saint Aubyn, Sir John, 140,

151

Tillotson, 140, 151

Saint Gothard, Mount, 158, 159
Saladin, Alexis, 144

August e, 144, 146

Charles, 142, 144

Madlle., 144, 147

Mathilde, 144

of Vaugeron, 134-136, I39.

143
Saladins of Maligny, 140, 145
Saporati, Marchese, 134, 149
Saussure, Nicholas T., 139, 145
Scala, Teatro della, 169, 171,

174
Scheldt, the, 46
Schlegel, August W. von, 137,

139, 146
Scott, Sir Walter, 70
Secheron, 99, icx), 103
Severn, Joseph, 181
Sgricci, 183-186

Artemisia, by, 184

Eteocle e Polinice, by, 184

Ettore, by, 185, 186

Shakespear, 147, 148

Shelley, Harriet, 109, 128, 130

Mary, 12, 23, 99-102, 106-

108, no, 113, 116, 118, 123-
128, 133-135. 209, 219

Frankenstein, by, 19,

125, 126
Memoir of Alfieri, by,

219, 220

Percy B., i, 3, 98-102, 104,

106-110, 112-118, 120-133,
13s. 136, 138, 185, 186, 204

Epipsychidion, by, 206

Poetical Essay, etc.,

by, no

Queen Mab, by, 107

Zastrozzi, by, 109

William, 116

Sherwood and Neely, 16, 22
Simplon, the, 163

Slaney, Mr., 149

Mrs., 122, 140, 149

Soane, John, 81, 212

Mrs., 212

Somers, Mr., 141, 150, 204
Stael, Madame de, 137, 139, 146,

152, 216
Swarrow, 172, 173, 183, 188

Tasso, 116, 119
Teniers, David, 40

Temptation of St. Anthony,

by, 40

Thun, 154, 15s

Lake of, 154

Tintoretto, 79
Toffettheim, 143
TofFettheim, Madame, 139, 143
Traveller, The (magazine), 4
Trevanion, Mr., 140

Mrs., 140

228

INDEX OF NAMES

Unterwalden, i6i, 162

Vacca, Antonio, 155, 204-206,
208

Leopoldo, 204

Madame, 206

Valence, 150
Vandyck, 41, 51, 53

Crucifixion^ by, 41, 53

Van Eyck, 40

Villa Diodati, Cologny, 98-100,

no, III, 120, 121, 125
Viviani, Conte, 192

Viviani, Emilia, 206

W
Wallraf, Professor, 78
Wallraf-Richartz Museum, 78
Ward, John W. (Lord Dudley),

III
Waterloo, 62-64, 213, 214
Watts, Mr., 18, 20
Wellington, Duke of, 68, 69
Westmorland, Countess of, 181,.

216, 218
Wildman, Colonel, 68
Wordsworth, Wm., 28
Wotheron, Mr., 173, 174, 180, 181
Wraxall, Sir Nathaniel, 67, 68

Richard Clay &> Spms, Limited, London and Bungay

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